San Andreas (12 page)

The medical staff, Bowen had maintained, were a different kind of civilian. Dr Singh had pointed out to him that ninety per cent of the medical staff of the armed forces were civilians, only they wore different kinds of uniforms: the staff on board the
San Andreas
wore different kinds of uniforms too, which happened to be white. Captain Bowen had then fallen back on his last defence: he was not, he said, going to take women through a war zone—he was referring to the six nursing staff aboard. A by now thoroughly irritated escort commander forcefully made three points that had forcefully been
made to him by the Admiralty: thousands of women and children had been in war zones while being transported as refugees to the United States and Canada: in the current year, as compared to the previous two years, U-boat losses had quadrupled while Mercantile Marine losses had been cut by eighty per cent: and the Russians had requested, or rather insisted, that as many wounded Allied personnel as possible be removed from their overcrowded Archangel hospitals. Captain Bowen, as he should have done at the beginning, had capitulated and the
Ocean Belle
, still painted in its wartime grey but carrying adequate supplies of white, red and green paint, had sailed with the convoy.

As convoys to Northern Russia went, it had been an exceptionally uneventful one. Not one merchant ship and not one escort vessel had been lost. Only two incidents had occurred and both had involved the
Ocean Belle
. Some way south of Jan Mayen Island they had come across a venerable V and W class destroyer, stopped in the water with an engine breakdown. This destroyer had been a unit of the destroyer screen escorting a previous convoy and had stopped to pick up survivors from a sinking cargo vessel, which had been heavily on fire. The time had been about 2.30 p.m., well after sunset, and the rescue operation had been interrupted by a brief air attack. The attacker had not been seen but had obviously no difficulty in seeing the destroyer, silhouetted as it was against the blazing cargo ship. It had been assumed that the
attacker was a reconnaissance Condor, for it had dropped no bombs and contented itself with raking the bridge with machine gun fire, which had effectively destroyed the radio office. Thus, when the engines had broken down some hours later—the breakdown had nothing to do with the Condor, the V and Ws were superannuated, overworked and much plagued by mechanical troubles—they had been unable to contact the vanished convoy.
^*

The wounded survivors were taken aboard the
Ocean Belle
. The destroyer itself, together with its crew and unwounded survivors, was taken in tow by an S-class destroyer. It was later learnt that both vessels had reached Scapa Flow intact.

Three days afterwards, somewhere off North Cape, they had come across an equally ancient ‘Kingfisher' corvette, which had no business whatever in those distant waters. It, too, was stopped, and so deep in the water astern that its poop was already awash. It, too, had survivors aboard—the survivors of the crew of a Russian submarine that had been picked up from a burning oil-covered sea.
^*
The Russians, for the most part badly burned, had been transferred, inevitably, to the
Ocean Belle
, the crew being transferred to an escort destroyer. The corvette was sunk by gunfire. It was during this transfer that the
Ocean Belle
had been holed twice, just below the water line, on the port side, in the paint store and ballast room. The reason for the damage had never been established.

The convoy had gone to Archangel but the
Ocean Belle
had put in to Murmansk—neither Captain Bowen nor the escort commander had thought it wise that the
Ocean Belle
should proceed any further than necessary in its then present condition—slightly down by the head and with a list to port. There were no dry dock facilities available but the Russians were masters of improvisation—the rigours of war had forced them to be. They topped up the after tanks,
drained the for'ard tanks and removed the for'ard slabs of concrete ballast until the holes in the paint store and ballast room were just clear of the water, after which it had taken them only a few hours to weld plates in position over the holes. The equalization of the tanks and the replacement of ballast had then brought the
Ocean Belle
back to an even keel.

While those repairs were being effected a small army of Russian carpenters had worked, three shifts in every twenty-four hours, in the hospital section of the ship, fitting out the wards, recovery room, messes, galley and medical store. Captain Bowen was astonished beyond measure. On his previous visits to the two Russian ports he had encountered from his allies, blood brothers who should have been in tears of gratitude for the dearly-bought and vital supplies being ferried to their stricken country, nothing but sullenness, indifference, a marked lack of cooperation and, not occasionally, downright hostility. The baffling sea-change he could only attribute to the fact that the Russians were only showing their heartfelt appreciation for the
Ocean Belle
having brought their wounded submariners back home.

When they sailed it was as a hospital ship—Bowen's crew, paintbrushes in hands, had worked with a will during their brief stay in Murmansk. They did not, as everyone had expected, proceed through the White Sea to pick up the wounded servicemen in Archangel. The Admiralty's orders
had been explicit: they were to proceed, and at all speed, to the port of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Jamieson replaced the cover of the small electrical junction box, having effectively isolated the ballast room from the main power system. He tapped the watertight door. ‘Short in there—could have been caused by the blast or sea-water, it doesn't matter—should have blown a fuse somewhere. It didn't. Somewhere or other there's a fuse, that's been tampered with—fuse-wire replaced by a nail or some such. That doesn't matter either. I'm not going to look for it. McCrimmon, go ask the engine-room to try the generator.'

McKinnon tapped the same door. ‘And what do we do here?'

‘What, indeed?' Jamieson sat on a paint drum and thought. ‘Three choices, I would say. We can get an air compressor down here, drill a hole through the bulkhead at about shoulder level and force the water out which would be fine if we knew where the level of the hole in the hull is. We don't. Besides, the chances are that the compressed air in the ballast room would escape before we could get the nozzle of the compressed air hose into the hole we drilled which could only mean that more water would pour into the ballast room. Or we could reinforce the bulkhead. The third choice is to do nothing. I'm for the third choice. It's a pretty solid bulkhead. We'd have to reduce speed, of course. No bulkhead is going to
stand up to the pressure at full speed if there's a hole the size of a barn door in the hull.'

‘A barn door would not be convenient,' McKinnon said, ‘I think I'll go and have a look.'

It was a very cold and rather bruised McKinnon who half-climbed and was half-pulled up to the foredeck of the
San Andreas
, which, engines stopped, was wallowing heavily in quartering seas. In the pale half-light given by the again functioning deck arc lamps they presented a strange quartet, Jamieson, Ferguson and McCrimmon, wraithlike figures completely shrouded in snow, McKinnon a weirdly-gleaming creature, the sea water on his rubber suit, aqualung and waterproof torch already, in that 35° below temperature, beginning to harden into ice. At a gesture from Jamieson, McCrimmon left for the engine-room while Ferguson pulled in the rope-ladder: Jamieson took McKinnon's arm and led him, the newly-formed ice on the rubber suit crackling as he stumbled along, towards the shelter of the superstructure where McKinnon pulled off his aqualung. His teeth were chattering uncontrollably.

‘Pretty bad down there, Bo'sun?'

‘Not that, sir. This damned rubber suit.' He fingered a waist-high gash in the material. ‘Tore it on a jagged piece of metal. From here down the suit is filled with water.'

‘Good God! You'll freeze to death, man. Hurry, hurrry!' In what was left of his cabin McKinnon
began to strip off his rubber suit. ‘You located the damage?'

‘No problem—and no barn door. Just a ragged hole about the size of my fist.'

Jamieson smiled. ‘Worth risking pneumonia to find that out. I'm going to the bridge. See you in the Captain's cabin.'

When McKinnon, in dry clothing but still shivering violently, joined Jamieson and Naseby in the Captain's cabin, the
San Andreas
was back on course and steadily picking up speed. Jamieson pushed a glass of Scotch across to him.

‘I'm afraid the Captain's supplies are taking a fearful beating, Bo'sun. This shouldn't increase the risk of pneumonia—I've left the water out. I've been speaking to Mr Patterson and the Captain—we've got a line through to the hospital now. When I told him you'd been over the side in this weather, he didn't say thank-you or anything like that, just said to tell you that you're mad.'

‘Captain Bowen is not often wrong and that's a fact.' McKinnon's hands were shaking so badly that he spilt liquid from his admittedly brimming glass. ‘Any instructions from the Captain or Mr Patterson?'

‘None. Both say they're quite happy to leave the topside to you.'

‘That's kind of them. What they really mean is that they have no option—there's only George and myself.'

‘George?'

‘Sorry, sir. Naseby, here. He's a bo'sun, too. We've been shipmates on and off, friends for twenty years.'

‘I didn't know.' Jamieson looked thoughtfully at Naseby. ‘I can see it now. You've made arrangements for up here, Bo'sun?'

‘About to, sir. George and I will take turns here, looking after the family jewels, so to speak. I'll have Trent, Ferguson and Curran spell one another on the wheel. I'll tell them to give me a shake—if I'm asleep—when or if the weather clears.'

‘Cue for Lieutenant Ulbricht?'

‘Indeed. I would like to make a suggestion, sir, if I may. I would like to have some people keeping watch at the fore and aft exits of the hospital, just to make absolutely certain that nobody's going to start sleepwalking during the night.'

‘Who's going to watch the watchers?'

‘A point, sir. The watchers I would suggest are Jones, McGuigan, McCrimmon and Stephen. Unless they're wonderful actors, the first two are too young and innocent to be criminals. McCrimmon may, indeed, have a criminal bent, but I think he's an honest criminal. And Stephen strikes me as being a fairly trustworthy lad. More important, he's not likely to forget that it was a naval minesweeper that picked him up out of the North Sea.'

‘I didn't know that, either. You seem to be better informed about my own department than I am. I'll arrange for Stephen and McCrimmon, you
look after the others. Our resident saboteur is not about to give up all that easily?'

‘I would be surprised if he did. Wouldn't you?'

‘Very much. I wonder what form of sabotage his next attempt to nobble us will take?'

‘I just have no idea. But another thought occurs, sir. The person you have keeping an eye on the aft exit from the hospital might also keep an eye on the entrance to A Ward.'

‘A Ward? That bunch of crooks? Whatever for?'

‘The person or persons who are trying to slow us and are doing their best to get us lost might think it a rather good idea to nobble Lieutenant Ulbricht.'

‘Indeed they might. I'll stay in the ward myself tonight. There's a spare bed. If I do drop off, the duty nurse can always give me a shake if anyone comes in who shouldn't be coming in.' Jamieson was silent for a few moments. ‘What's behind it all, Bo'sun?'

‘I think you know as well as I do, sir. Somebody, somewhere, wants to take over the
San Andreas
, although
why
anyone should want to take over a hospital ship I can't even begin to imagine.'

‘No more can I. A U-boat, you think?'

‘It would have to be, wouldn't it? I mean, you can't capture a ship from the air and they're hardly likely to send the
Tirpitz
after us.' McKinnon shook his head. ‘A U-boat? Any fishing boat, with a few armed and determined men, could take us over whenever they felt like it.'

McKinnon, deep in sleep though he was, was instantly awake at Naseby's shake and swung his legs over the edge of Captain Bowen's bunk.

‘What's the time, George?'

‘Six a.m. Curran's just been down from the bridge. Says the blizzard has blown itself out.'

‘Stars?'

‘He didn't say.'

The Bo'sun pulled on an extra jersey, duffel coat and sea-boots, made his way up to the bridge, spoke briefly to Curran and went out on the starboard wing. Within only a second or two, bent double and with his back to the gale-force wind, coughing and gasping as the ice-chilled air reached down into his lungs, he was beginning to wish himself anywhere except where he was. He switched on his torch and picked up the thermometer. It showed—8° 40° of frost on the Fahrenheit scale. Combined with the strong wind the temperature, expressed in terms of the
chill factor on exposed skin, was in the region of—80°F.

He straightened slowly and looked out towards the bows. In the light of the Red Cross arc lamps on the foredeck it was at once clear, as Curran had said, that the blizzard had blown itself out. Against the deep indigo of the sky, the stars were preternaturally bright and clear. Breathing through a mittened hand that covered both mouth and nose, McKinnon turned into the wind and looked aft.

At first he could see nothing, for the bitter wind brought instantaneous tears to his eyes. He ducked below the shelter of the canvas windbreaker, fumbled a pair of goggles from his coat pocket, strapped them under his duffel hood, straightened again, and, by dint of wiping the back of his free mitten against the glasses, was able to see, intermittently, what was going on astern.

The waves—the weather had not yet worsened to the extent that the seas had become broken and confused—were between twelve and fifteen feet in height, their lee sides whitely streaked with spume and half-hidden in flying spray as the wind tore their tops away. The stars were as brilliant as they had been in the other direction and McKinnon soon located the Pole Star, off the starboard quarter. The wind was no longer backing to the north and the
San Andreas
, as far as he could judge, was still heading roughly between southwest and south-south-west.

McKinnon moved back into the bridge, thankfully closed the door and pondered briefly. Their present course, it was safe to assume, offered no danger: on the other hand it was not safe to assume that they would or could maintain their present course. The weather, in this grey and undefined area between the Barents and Norwegian Seas, was notoriously fickle. He had not, for instance, expected—and had said as much—that the skies would clear that night: there was equally no guarantee that they would remain clear and that the wind would not back further to the north. He descended two decks, selected an armful of warm clothing from the now mostly abandoned crew's quarters and made for the hospital area. Crossing the dangerously slippery upper deck and guided only by the lifeline, he became acutely and painfully aware that a change was already under way, a factor that he had not experienced on the starboard wing only a few minutes ago. Needle-pointed ice spicules were beginning to lance into the unprotected areas of his skin. It augured ill.

In the hospital mess-deck he came across both Jones and McGuigan, both of whom assured him that no one was or had been abroad. He passed into B ward, at the far end of which Janet Magnusson was seated at her desk, her elbows propped on it, her chin propped on her hands, and her eyes closed.

‘Aha!' McKinnon said. ‘Asleep on the job, Nurse Magnusson.'

She looked up, startled, blinked and tried to sound indignant. ‘Asleep? Of course not.' She peered at his armful of clothing. ‘What on earth is that for? Have you moved into the old rags trade, Archie? No, don't tell me. It's for that poor man in there. Maggie's in there too—she won't be pleased.'

‘As far as your precious Maggie is concerned, I would have thought that a little suffering for Lieutenant Ulbricht would be preferable to none. No salt tears for either Sister Morrison or the Lieutenant.'

‘Archie!' She was on her feet. ‘Your face. Blood!'

‘As far as the Lieutenant and myself are both concerned that should please your friend.' He wiped the blood off his face. ‘It's not nice up top.'

‘Archie.' She looked at him uncertainly, concern in the tired eyes.

‘It's all right, Janet.' He touched her shoulder and passed into A ward. Sister Morrison and Lieutenant Ulbricht were both awake and drinking tea, the sister at her desk, Ulbricht sitting up in bed: clear-eyed and rested, the German pilot, as Dr Singh had said, unquestionably had quite remarkable recuperative powers. Jamieson, fully clothed and stretched out on the top of a bed, opened an eye as McKinnon passed by.

‘‘Morning, Bo'sun. It
is
morning, isn't it?'

‘Six-twenty, sir.'

‘Good lord. Selfishness, that's what it is—I've been asleep for seven hours. How are things?'

‘A quiet night up top. Here, too?'

‘Must have been—no one gave me a shake.' He looked at the bundle of clothing that McKinnon was carrying, then at Ulbricht. ‘Stars?'

‘Yes, sir. At the moment, that is. I don't think they'll be there for long.'

‘Mr McKinnon!' Sister Morrison's voice was cold, with a touch of asperity, as it usually was when addressing the Bo'sun. ‘Do you intend to drag that poor man out of bed on a night like this? He's been shot several times.'

‘I know he's been shot several times—or have you forgotten who picked him out of the water?' The Bo'sun was an innately courteous man but never at his best when dealing with Sister Morrison. ‘So he's a poor man, now—well, it's better than being a filthy Nazi murderer. What do you mean—on a night like this?'

‘I mean the weather, of course.' Her fists were actually clenched. Jamieson surveyed the ward deckhead.

‘What do you know about the weather? You haven't been out of here all night. If you had been, I would have known.' He turned a dismissive back on her and looked at Ulbricht. ‘How do you feel, Lieutenant?'

‘I have an option?' Ulbricht smiled. ‘I feel well enough. Even if I didn't I'm still coming. Don't be too hard on the ward sister, Bo'sun—even your lady with a lamp in the Crimea had a pretty short way with difficult patients—but she's overlooking
my natural selfishness. I'm on this ship too.' He climbed stiffly out of bed and, with the assistance of McKinnon and Jamieson, started to pull clothing on over his pyjamas while Sister Morrison looked on in frigid disapproval. The disapproval finally culminated in the drumming of fingertips on the table.

‘I think,' she said, 'that we should have Dr Singh in here.'

McKinnon turned slowly and looked at her and when he spoke his voice was as expressionless as his face. ‘I don't think it matters very much what you think, Sister. I suggest you just give a shake to Captain Bowen there and find out just how much your thinking matters.'

‘The Captain is under heavy sedation. When he regains consciousness, I shall report you for insolence.'

‘Insolence?' McKinnon looked at her with indifference. ‘I think he would prefer that to stupidity—the stupidity of a person who is trying to endanger the
San Andreas
and all those aboard her. It's a pity we don't have any irons on this ship.'

She glared at him, made to speak, then turned as Dr Sinclair came into the ward. Sleepy-eyed and tousle-haired, he looked in mild astonishment at the spectacle before him.

‘Dr Sinclair! Thank heavens you're here!' Rapidly and urgently she began to explain the situation to him. ‘Those—those men want starsights or navigation or something and in spite of all my
protests they insist on dragging a seriously ill man up to the bridge or wherever and—'

‘I can see what's happening,' Sinclair said mildly. ‘But if the Lieutenant is being dragged he's not putting up much in the way of resistance, is he? And by no stretch of the imagination can you describe him as being seriously ill. But I do take your point, Sister. He should be under constant medical supervision.'

‘Ah! Thank you, Doctor.' Sister Morrison came very close to permitting herself a smile. ‘So it's back to bed for him.'

‘Well, no, not quite. A duffel coat, a pair of sea boots, my bag of tricks and I'll go up with them. That way the Lieutenant will be under constant medical supervision.'

Even with three men lending what assistance they could, it took twice as long as expected to help Lieutenant Ulbricht as far as the Captain's cabin. Once there, he sank heavily into the chair behind the table.

‘Thank you very much, gentlemen.' He was very pale, his breathing shallow and abnormally rapid. ‘Sorry about that. It would seem that I am not as fit as I thought I was.'

‘Nonsense.' Dr Sinclair was brisk. ‘You did splendidly. It's that inferior English blood that we had to give you this morning, that's all.' He made free with Captain Bowen's supplies. ‘Superior Scotch blood. Effects guaranteed.'

Ulbricht smiled faintly. ‘Isn't there something about opening pores?'

‘You won't be out in the open long enough to give your pores a chance to protest.'

Up on the bridge McKinnon adjusted Ulbricht's goggles, then scarfed him so heavily above and below the goggles that not a square millimetre of skin was left exposed. When he was finished, Lieutenant Ulbricht was as immune to the weather as it was possible for anyone to be: two balaclavas and a tightly strung duffel hood made sure of that.

McKinnon went out on the starboard wing, hung a trailing lamp from the canvas windbreaker, went back inside, picked up the sextant, took Ulbricht by his right arm—the undamaged one—and led him outside. Even although he was so cocooned against the elements, even though the Bo'sun had warned him and even though he had already had an ominous foretaste of what lay in store in their brief journey across the upper deck, he was totally unprepared for the power and savagery of the wind that caught him as soon as he stepped out on the wing. His weakened limbs were similarly unprepared. He took two short sharp steps forward, and though he managed to clutch the top of the windbreaker, would probably have fallen but for McKinnon's sustaining hand. Had he been carrying the sextant he would almost certainly have dropped it.

With McKinnon's arm around him Ulbricht took three starsights, to the south, west and north, clumsily noting down the results as he did so. The first two sights were comparatively quick and simple: the third, to the north, took much longer and was far more difficult, for Ulbricht had to keep clearing away the ice spicules from his goggles and the sextant. When he had finished he handed the sextant back to McKinnon, leant his elbows on the after edge of the wing and stared out towards the stern, occasionally and mechanically wiping his goggles with the back of his hand. After almost twenty seconds of this McKinnon took his good arm and almost literally dragged him back into the shelter of the bridge, banging the door to behind him. Handing the sextant to Jamieson, he quickly removed Ulbricht's duffel hood, balaclavas and goggles.

‘Sorry about that, Lieutenant, but there's a time and a place for everything and daydreaming or sightseeing out on that wing is not one of them.'

‘The funnel.' Ulbricht looked slightly dazed. ‘What's happened to your funnel?'

‘It fell off.'

‘I see. It fell off. You mean—I—'

‘What's done is done,' Jamieson said philosophically. He handed a glass to the Lieutenant. ‘To help you with your calculations.'

‘Thank you. Yes.' Ulbricht shook his head as if to clear it. ‘Yes. My calculations.'

Weak though he was and shivering constantly—this despite the fact that the bridge temperature was already over 55°F.—Ulbricht left no doubt that, as a navigator, he knew precisely what he was about. Working from starsights, he had no need to worry about the vagaries of deviation and variation. With a chart, dividers, parallel rules, pencils and chronometer, he completed his calculations in remarkably short order and made a tiny cross on the chart after having consulted navigational tables.

‘We're here. Well, near enough. 68.05 north, 7.20 east—more or less due west of the Lofotens.Our course is 218. Is one permitted to ask our destination?'

Jamieson smiled. ‘Quite frankly, Lieutenant Ulbricht, you wouldn't be much use to us if you didn't. Aberdeen.'

‘Ah! Aberdeen. They have a rather famous prison there, do they not? Peterhead, isn't it? I wonder what the cells are like.'

‘It's a prison for civilians. Of the more intractable kind. I should hardly think you'd end up there. Or in any prison.' Jamieson looked at him with some curiosity. ‘How do you know about Peterhead, Lieutenant?'

‘I know Scotland well. I know England even better.' Ulbricht did not seek to elaborate. ‘So, Aberdeen. We'll stay on this course until we get to the latitude of Trondheim, then south until we get to the latitude of Bergen—or, if you like Mr McKinnon, the latitude of your home islands.'

‘How did you know I'm a Shetlander?'

‘Some members of the nursing staff don't seem to mind talking to me. Then on a more westerly course. That's speaking roughly, we'll work out the details as we go along. It's a very simple exercise and there's no problem.'

‘Of course it's no problem,' Jamieson said, ‘neither is playing Rachmaninoff, not as long as you are a concert pianist.'

Ulbricht smiled. ‘You overrate my simple skills. The only problem that will arise is when we make our landfall, which of course will have to be in daylight. At this time of year North Sea fogs are as common as not and there's no way I can navigate in a fog without a radio and compass.'

‘With any luck, there shouldn't be all that much of a problem,' McKinnon said. ‘War or no war, there's still pretty heavy traffic on the east coast and there's more than an even chance that we can pick up a ship and be guided into harbour.'