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

‘Well, perhaps after all, a toast to the departed. An old Gaelic curse, rather. Dr Singh. May his shade walk on the dark side of hell tonight.’ He raised his glass. ‘To Flannelfoot.’

McKinnon drank his toast alone.

Chapter Nine (#ulink_515f207c-47c9-5be6-82fb-d5cbd46d6f90)

Less than ten minutes after McKinnon’s arrival on the bridge the phone rang.

‘Jamieson here,’ the voice said. ‘Things do keep happening aboard this damned ship. There’s been another accident.’

‘Accident?’

‘Accident on purpose. Incident, I should have said. Your pal Limassol.’

‘Limassol’ was the name that McKinnon had given to the man whom he had discovered to be the radio operator of the Argos. Apart from this discovery, the only other thing that the Bo’sun had been able to discover about him was that he was a Greek Cypriot from Limassol.

‘What’s happened to my pal Limassol?’

‘He’s been clobbered.’

‘Ah.’ McKinnon was not a man much given to exclamatory outbursts. ‘Inevitably. Who clobbered him?’

‘You should know better than to ask that question, Bo’sun. How the hell should I know who clobbered him? Nobody ever knows who does anything aboard the San Andreas. The Chief Officer was more prophetic than he knew when he gave this ship its new name. It’s a bloody disaster area. I can only give you the facts as I know them. Sister Maria was on duty when Limassol sat down to have a look at the transceiver. After a while he stood and made the motion of screwing his forefinger against the palm of his other hand. She guessed, correctly, that he wanted tools and sent for Wayland Day to take him down to the engine-room. I was there and gave him the tools he wanted. He also took a bridge-megger with him. Gave every impression of a man who knew what he was doing. On his way back, in the passageway leading to the mess-deck, he was clobbered. Something hard and heavy.’

‘How hard, how heavy?’

‘If you’ll just hang on for a moment. We have him down here in a bed in A Ward. Dr Sinclair is attending to him. He can tell you better than I can.’

There was a brief silence, then Sinclair was on the phone. ‘Bo’sun? Well, damn it, confirmation of the existence of Flannelfoot number two – not that any confirmation was needed, but I didn’t expect such quick and violent proof. This lad doesn’t hang around, does he? Dangerous, violent, acts on his own initiative and his mind’s working on the same wavelength as ours.’

‘Limassol?’

‘Pretty poorly, to say the least. Some metallic object, no question, could easily have been a crowbar. I would guess that the attacker’s intent was to kill him. With most people he might well have succeeded but this Limassol seems to have a skull like an elephant. Fractured, of course. I’ll have an X-ray. Routine and quite superfluous but mandatory. No signs of any brain damage, which is not to say that there isn’t any. But no obvious damage, not, at least, at this stage. Two things I’m pretty certain about, Mr McKinnon. He’ll live but he’s not going to be of much use to you – or anyone – for some time to come.’

‘As Dr Singh said about Lieutenant Cunningham – two hours, two days, two weeks, two months?’

‘Something like that. I’ve simply no idea. All I know is that if he does recover rapidly he’ll be of no possible use to you for days to come, so you can rule him out of any plans you may have.’

‘I’m fresh out of plans, Doctor.’

‘Indeed. We seem to be running out of options. Mr Jamieson would like to have another word with you.’

Jamieson came back on the phone. ‘Maybe this could have been my fault, Bo’sun. Maybe if I’d been thinking a bit more clearly and a bit quicker this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘How on earth were you to know that Limassol was going to be attacked?’

‘True. But I should have gone with him; not for his protection, but to watch him to see what he did to make the set work. That way I might have picked up enough to have some knowledge – rudimentary, but some – so that we wouldn’t have to rely entirely on one man.’

‘Flannelfoot would probably have clobbered you too. No point, sir, in trying to place the blame where none exists. The milk’s spilt and you didn’t spill it. Just give me enough time and I’ll find out it was all McKinnon’s fault.’

He hung up and related the gist of his conversation to Naseby, who had the wheel, and to Lieutenant Ulbricht, who had declared himself as feeling so fit that he no longer qualified as a bed patient.

‘Disturbing,’ Ulbricht said. ‘Our friend seems to be resourceful, very quick-thinking and very much a man of decision and action. I say “disturbing” because it has just occurred to me that he may have been Flannelfoot number one and not Dr Singh, in which case we can expect a great deal more unpleasantness. In any event, it seems to rule out the crew of the Argos – none of them speaks English so they couldn’t have known about the fake cardiac unit being in A Ward.’

McKinnon looked morose. ‘The fact that none of them appears to understand a word of English – they’re very good with their blank stares when you address them in that language – doesn’t mean that one or two of them don’t speak better English than I do. It doesn’t rule out the crew of the Argos. And, of course, it doesn’t rule out our own crew or the nine invalids we picked up in Murmansk.’

‘And how would they have known that the tampered cardiac unit had been transferred from the recovery room to Ward A? Only – let me see – only seven people knew about the transfer. The seven at the table this morning. One of us could have talked, perhaps?’

‘No.’ McKinnon was very definite.

‘Inadvertently?’

‘No.’

‘You trust us that much?’ Ulbricht smiled but there was no humour in it. ‘Or is it that you have to trust somebody?’

‘I trust you all right.’ McKinnon sounded a little weary. ‘Point is, it wasn’t necessary for anyone to talk. Everybody knows that Dr Singh and the two injured crewmen from the Argos are dead.’ McKinnon made a dismissive little gesture with his hand. ‘After all, we’re going to bury them inside the half-hour. Everybody knows that they were killed by an explosive blast inside the recovery room and our newest Flannelfoot must have known that the transceiver was there and may have guessed, or suspected, that the case of the cardiac unit had been damaged sufficiently to reveal the existence of the transmitter. It had not, in fact, but that was pure luck on my part.’

‘How do you explain the attack on the radio officer?’

‘Easily.’ McKinnon looked and sounded bitter. ‘Flannelfoot didn’t have to know where the radio was, all he had to know was that we had developed a certain interest in radio. Mr Jamieson tried to take some of the blame for the attack. Totally unnecessary when Mastermind McKinnon is around. My fault. My fault entirely. When I went down to find a radio officer the crew of the Argos were, as usual, in a corner by themselves. They weren’t alone in the mess-deck – some of the injured men we picked up in Murmansk and some of our crew were there – but not close enough to hear us talking. Not that there was any talking. I just said the word “radio” several times, low enough not to be overheard, and this lad from Limassol looked at me. Then I made a motion of tapping my forefinger as if sending a signal in Morse. After that, I spun the handle of an imaginary electrical generator. None of this could have been seen except by the crew of the Argos. Then I made my stupid mistake. I cupped my hand to my ear as if listening to something. By this time Limassol had got the message and was on his feet. But our new Flannelfoot had got the message too. Just one little movement of my hand and he got it. He’s not only violent and dangerous but very smart too. An unpleasant combination.’

‘Indeed it is,’ Ulbricht said. ‘You have it right, you must have, and I can’t see any reason for self-reproach. I used the right word back there – disturbing.’

Naseby said: ‘Do you by any chance remember who exactly was in the mess-deck when you were there?’

‘I do. Every crew member who wasn’t on watch. On the deckside, only two were on watch – you and Trent down in the Captain’s cabin there keeping an eye on the sextant and chronometer. All the off-duty engine-room staff. Two cooks and Mario. Seven of the seventeen invalids we picked up in Murmansk – the three who were supposed to be tubercular cases, the three who are supposed to be suffering from nervous breakdowns, and one of the exposure cases. He’s so wrapped in bandages that he can barely walk so he doesn’t come into consideration. A couple of nurses – they don’t come into consideration either. And there’s no doubt you’re right, Lieutenant – the crew of the Argos has to be in the clear.’

‘Well, that’s something,’ Ulbricht said. ‘A moment ago you were expressing reservations against them which I found rather puzzling, as in that long talk in the Captain’s cabin we had more or less agreed that the crew of the Argos was in the clear. The original suggestion, you may remember, came from you.’

‘I remember. Next thing you know I’ll be looking into the mirror and saying “and I don’t trust you, either”. Yes, I know I made the suggestion, but I still had this tiny doubt. At the time I more than suspected that we had another Flannelfoot aboard but I wasn’t certain until less than half an hour ago. It’s impossible to believe that it wasn’t our new Flannelfoot who blew the hole in the for’ard ballast room when we were alongside that sinking corvette. And it’s unthinkable – and for me this is the clincher – that a member of the Argos crew would deliberately set out to murder a person who was not only a crewmate but a fellow countryman.’

‘At least it’s something,’ Naseby said. ‘Brings it down to our own crew, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, our crew – and at least six allegedly physical and mentally disturbed cripples from Murmansk.’

Naseby shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Archie, this trip is going to be the ruination of you. Never known you to be so terribly suspicious of everybody – and you’ve just said you could find yourself not even trusting yourself.’

‘If a nasty suspicious mind is any kind of hope for survival, George, then I’m going to keep on having just that kind of mind. You will remember that we had to leave Halifax in a tearing hurry, in a cargo ship little more than half converted to a hospital. Why? To get to Archangel and that with all possible speed. Then, after that little accident when we were alongside that corvette it became equally essential that we be diverted to Murmansk. Why?’

‘Well, we were listing a bit and down by the head.’

‘We had stopped making water, weather conditions were fair, we could have reached the White Sea, crossed it, and made Archangel without much trouble. But no, it was Murmansk or nothing. Again, why?’

‘So that the Russians could place that explosive charge in the ballast room.’ Ulbricht smiled. ‘I recall your words – our gallant allies.’

‘I recall them too. I wish I didn’t. We all make mistakes, I’m certainly no exception, and that was one of my biggest. The Russians didn’t place that charge – your people did.’

‘The Germans? Impossible!’