36
PERCIVAL GODLIMAN HAD A HEADACHE FROM TOO many cigarettes and too little sleep. He had taken a little whisky to help him through the long, worried night in his office, and that had been a mistake. Everything oppressed him: the weather, his office, his job, the war. For the first time since he had gotten into this business he found himself longing for dusty libraries, illegible manuscripts and medieval Latin.
Colonel Terry walked in with two cups of tea on a tray. “Nobody around here sleeps,” he said cheerfully. He sat down. “Ship’s biscuit?” He offered Godliman a plate.
Godliman refused the biscuit and drank the tea. It gave him a temporary lift.
“I just had a call from the great man,” Terry said. “He’s keeping the night vigil with us.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Godliman said sourly.
“He’s worried.”
The phone rang.
“Godliman.”
“I have the Royal Observer Corps in Aberdeen for you, sir.”
“Yes.”
A new voice came on, the voice of a young man. “Royal Observer Corps, Aberdeen, here, sir.”
“Yes.”
“Is that Mr. Godliman?”
“Yes.” Dear God, these military types took their time.
“We’ve raised Storm Island at last, sir…it’s not our regular observer. In fact it’s a woman—”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing, yet, sir.”
“What do you mean?” Godliman fought down the angry impatience.
“She’s just…well, crying, sir.”
Godliman hesitated. “Can you connect me to her?”
“Yes. Hold on.” There was a pause punctuated by several clicks and a hum. Then Godliman heard the sound of a woman weeping.
He said, “Hello, can you hear me?”
The weeping went on.
The young man came back on the line to say, “She won’t be able to hear you until she switches to ‘Receive,’ sir—ah, she’s done it. Go ahead.”
Godliman said, “Hello, young lady. When I’ve finished speaking I’ll say ‘Over.’ Then you switch to ‘Transmit’ to speak to me and you say ‘Over’ when you have finished. Do you understand? Over.”
The woman’s voice came on. “Oh, thank God for somebody sane, yes, I understand. Over.”
“Now, then,” Godliman said gently, “tell me what’s been happening there. Over.”
“A man was shipwrecked here two—no, three days ago. I think he’s that stiletto murderer from London, he killed my husband and our shepherd and now he’s outside the house, and I’ve got my little boy here…I’ve nailed the windows shut and fired at him with a shotgun, and barred the door and set the dog on him but he killed the dog and I hit him with an axe when he tried to get in through the window and I can’t do it anymore so please come for God’s sake. Over.”
Godliman put his hand over the phone. His face was white. “Jesus Christ…” But when he spoke to her, he was brisk. “You must try to hold on a little longer,” he began. “There are sailors and coastguards and policemen and all sorts of people on their way to you but they can’t land until the storm lets up…. Now, there’s something I want you to do, and I can’t tell you why you must do it because of the people who may be listening to us, but I can tell you that it is absolutely essential…Are you hearing me clearly? Over.”
“Yes, go on. Over.”
“You must destroy your radio. Over.”
“Oh, no, please…”
“Yes,” Godliman said, then he realized she was still transmitting.
“I don’t…I can’t…” Then there was a scream.
Godliman said, “Hello, Aberdeen, what’s happening?”
The young man came on. “The set’s still transmitting, sir, but she’s not speaking. We can’t hear anything.”
“She screamed.”
“Yes, we got that.”
Godliman hesitated a moment. “What’s the weather like up there?”
“It’s raining, sir.” The young man sounded puzzled.
“I’m not making conversation,” Godliman snapped. “Is there any sign of the storm letting up?”
“It’s eased a little in the last few minutes, sir.”
“Good. Get back to me the instant that woman comes back on the air.”
“Very good, sir.”
Godliman said to Terry. “God only knows what that girl’s going through up there—” He jiggled the cradle of the phone.
The colonel crossed his legs. “If she would only smash up the radio, then—”
“Then we don’t care if he kills her?”
“You said it.”
Godliman spoke into the phone. “Get me Bloggs at Rosyth.”
BLOGGS WOKE UP with a start, and listened. Outside it was dawn. Everyone in the scramble hut was listening too. They could hear nothing. That was what they were listening to: the silence.
The rain had stopped drumming on the tin roof.
Bloggs went to the window. The sky was grey, with a band of white on the eastern horizon. The wind had dropped suddenly and the rain had become a light drizzle.
The pilots started putting on jackets and helmets, lacing boots, lighting up last cigarettes.
A klaxon sounded, and a voice boomed out over the airfield: “Scramble! Scramble!”
The phone rang. The pilots ignored it and piled out through the door. Bloggs picked it up. “Yes?”
“Percy here, Fred. We just contacted the island. He’s killed the two men. The woman’s managing to hold him off at the moment but she clearly won’t last much longer—”
“The rain has stopped. We’re taking off now,” Bloggs said.
“Make it fast, Fred. Good-bye.”
Bloggs hung up and looked around for his pilot. Charles Calder had fallen asleep over War and Peace. Bloggs shook him roughly. “Wake up, you dozy bastard, wake up!”
Calder opened his eyes.
Bloggs could have hit him. “Wake up, come on, we’re going, the storm’s ended!”
The pilot jumped to his feet. “Jolly good show,” he said.
He ran out of the door and Bloggs followed, shaking his head.
THE LIFEBOAT dropped into the water with a crack like a pistol and a wide V-shaped splash. The sea was far from calm, but here in the partial shelter of the bay there was no risk to a stout boat in the hands of experienced sailors.
The captain said, “Carry on, Number One.”
The first mate was standing at the rail with three of the ratings. He wore a pistol in a waterproof holster. “Let’s go,” he told them.
The four men scrambled down the ladders and into the boat. The first mate sat in the stern and the three sailors broke out the oars and began to row.
For a few moments the captain watched their steady progress toward the jetty. Then he went back to the bridge and gave orders for the corvette to continue circling the island.
THE SHRILL RINGING of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.
Slim said, “I thought something was different. We aren’t going up and down so much. Almost motionless, really. Makes me damn seasick.”
Nobody was listening: the crew were hurrying to their stations, some of them fastening life jackets as they went.
The engines fired with a roar, and the vessel began to tremble faintly.
Up on deck Smith stood in the prow, enjoying the fresh air and the spray on his face after a day and a night below.
As the cutter left the harbor Slim joined him.
“Here we go again,” Slim said.
“I knew the bell was going to ring then,” Smith said. “You know why?”
“Tell me.”
“I was holding ace and a king. Banker’s Twenty-One.”
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER WERNER HEER looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes.”
Major Wohl nodded. “What’s the weather like?”
“The storm has ended,” Heer said reluctantly. He would have preferred to keep that information to himself.
“Then we should surface.”
“If your man were there, he would send us a signal.”
“The war is not won by hypothesis, captain,” said Wohl. “I firmly suggest that we surface.”
There had been a blazing row while the U-boat was in dock between Heer’s superior officer and Wohl’s; and Wohl’s had won. Heer was still captain of the ship, but he had been told in no uncertain terms that he had better have a damned good reason next time he ignored one of Major Wohl’s firm suggestions.
“We will surface at six o’clock exactly,” he said.
Wohl nodded again and looked away.