Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini

‘All right, so statistics aren’t interesting either. He also says that his father knows mine.’

‘Ah. That is interesting. Wait a minute. He mentioned that his father had been an attaché at the German Embassy in London. He didn’t mention whether he was a commercial or cultural attaché or whatever. He didn’t just happen to mention to you that his father had been the naval attaché there?’

‘He was.’

‘Don’t tell me that his old man is a captain in the German Navy.’

‘He is.’

‘That makes you practically blood brothers. Or brother and sister. Mark my words, Sister,’ McKinnon said solemnly, ‘I see the hand of fate here. Something pre-ordained, you might say?’

‘Pfui!’

‘Are they both on active service?’

‘Yes.’ She sounded forlorn.

‘Don’t you find it funny that your respective parents should be prowling the high seas figuring out ways of doing each other in?’

‘I don’t find it at all funny.’

‘I didn’t mean funny in that sense.’ If anyone had ever suggested to McKinnon that Margaret Morrison would one day strike him as a woebegone figure he would have questioned his sanity: but not any longer. He found her sudden dejection inexplicable. ‘Not to worry, lassie. It’ll never happen.’ He wasn’t at all sure what he meant by that.

‘Of course not.’ Her voice carried a total lack of conviction. She made to speak, hesitated, looked down at the deck, then slowly lifted her head. Her face was in shadow but he felt almost certain that he saw the sheen of tears. ‘I heard things about you, today.’

‘Oh. Nothing to my credit, I’m sure. You can’t believe a word anyone says these days. What things, Sister?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’ The irritation was as unaccustomed as the dejection.

McKinnon raised a polite eyebrow. ‘Sister? But you are a sister.’

‘Not the way you make it sound. Sorry, I didn’t mean that, you don’t make it sound different from anyone else. It’s like those cheap American films where the man with the gun goes around calling everyone “sister”.’

He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t like you to confuse me with a hoodlum. Miss Morrison?’

‘You know my name.’

‘Yes. I also know that you started out to say something, changed your mind and are trying to stall.’

‘No. Yes. Well, not really. It’s difficult, I’m not very good at those things. I heard about your family this morning. Just before we came up. I’m sorry, I am terribly sorry.’

‘Janet?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s no secret.’

‘It was a German bomber pilot who killed them.’ She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. ‘Along comes another German bomber pilot, again attacking innocent civilians, and you’re the first person to come to his defence.’

‘Don’t go pinning any haloes or wings on me. Besides, I’m not so sure that’s a compliment. What did you expect me to do? Lash out in revenge at an innocent man?’

‘You? Don’t be silly. Well, no, maybe I was silly to say it, but you know very well what I mean. I also heard Petty Officer McKinnon, BEM, DSM and goodness knows what else was in a Malta hospital with a broken back when he heard the news. An Italian Air Force bomber got your submarine. You seem to have an affinity for enemy bombers.’

‘Janet didn’t know that.’

She smiled. ‘Captain Bowen and I have become quite friendly.’

‘Captain Bowen,’ McKinnon said without heat, ‘is a gossipy old woman.’

‘Captain Bowen is a gossipy old woman. Mr Kennet is a gossipy old woman. Mr Patterson is a gossipy old woman. Mr Jamieson is a gossipy old woman. They’re all gossipy old women.’

‘Goodness me! That’s a very serious allegation, Sister. Sorry. Margaret.’

‘Gossipy old women speak in low voices or whispers. Whenever any two of them or three of them or indeed all four are together they speak in low voices or whispers. You can feel the tension, almost smell the fear – well, no, that’s the wrong word, apprehension, I should say. Why do they whisper?’

‘Maybe they’ve got secrets.’

‘I deserve better than that.’

‘We’ve got saboteurs aboard.’

‘I know that. We all know that. The whisperers know that we all know that.’ She gave him a long, steady look. ‘I still deserve better than that. Don’t you trust me?’

‘I trust you. We’re being hunted. Somebody aboard the San Andreas has a transmitter radio that is sending out a continuous location signal. The Luftwaffe, the U-boats know exactly where we are. Somebody wants us. Somebody wants to take over the San Andreas.’

For long moments she looked at his eyes as if searching for an answer to a question she couldn’t formulate. McKinnon shook his head and said: ‘I’m sorry. That’s all I know. You must believe me.’

‘I do believe you. Who could be sending out this signal?’

‘Anybody. My guess is that it is a member of our own crew. Could be a survivor from the Argos. Could be any of the sick men we picked up in Murmansk. Each idea is quite ridiculous but one has to be less ridiculous than the others. Which, I have no idea.’

‘Why would anyone want us?’

‘If I knew that, I’d know the answer to a lot of things. Once again, I have no idea.’

‘How would they take us over?’

‘Submarine. U-boat. No other way. They have no surface ships and an aircraft is out of the question. Praying, that’s what your whisperers are probably at – praying. Praying that the snow will never end. Our only hope lies in concealment. Praying, as the old divines used to say, that we will not be abandoned by fortune.’

‘And if we are?’

‘Then that’s it.’

‘You’re not going to do anything?’ She seemed more than faintly incredulous. ‘You’re not even going to try to do anything?’

It was quite some hours since McKinnon had made up his mind where his course of action would lie but it seemed hardly the time or the place to elaborate on his decision. ‘What on earth do you expect me to do? Send them to the bottom with a salvo of stale bread and old potatoes? You forget this is a hospital ship. Sick, wounded and all civilians.’

‘Surely there’s something you can do.’ There was a strange note in her voice, one almost of desperation. She went on bitterly: ‘The much-bemedalled Petty Officer McKinnon.’