‘That’s right, sir. Up at Faslane. Three SSN COs driving off base for a stag night. One of them was getting married the next day. Hit a petrol tanker. Went up in flames. All dead.’
‘And suddenly we had three boats without skippers. Mmmm. That explains some of it. So, we’ve got an obsessive nit-picker on the loose, obsessed at the moment, it seems, with a personal grievance against the Russians. Anything else in the file, further back?’
Bourlet riffled through the pages.
‘He came from a naval family. Father and grandfather. His father had a curious end to his career. Could be relevant. Remember the old HMS Tenby? A diesel submarine that disappeared in the Barents Sea in November 1962? All hands lost. No trace of her ever found.’
‘Oh, yes. I remember vaguely.’
‘Philip Hitchens’ father was her second-in-command.’
‘I remember it now; I was at Dartmouth at the time. But I can’t remember the details.…’
‘She was on an intelligence mission, monitoring Soviet torpedo trials. We believed some of them were nuclear-tipped. There was always a suspicion that the Soviets had sunk her, but never any evidence. Some boffin down at the naval architects’ department in Bath came up with a theory that a fire on one of the mess decks could have flashed through into the torpedo room. Proved it on a test rig. The enquiry concluded that’s what must have happened. Magazine explosion causing total loss. They changed the design of the class after that.’
‘Hitchens the younger must’ve been still at school at the time. Traumatic for him.’
‘Early teens. There’s nothing in his file about his thoughts on the matter, except a curious line in his original application to join. He said he saw himself as “continuing the career which his father had been unable to complete”.’
‘That obsessive streak again. There, right at the start, and no one saw the danger in it.’
‘To be fair, it’s not an uncommon characteristic in the Navy, sir.’
‘Hmmm. So what you’re saying is that there’s nothing in the man’s record that could’ve led us to predict something like this.’
‘Absolutely, sir. The file shows he’s a weak link in the chain, slipped into the system out of temporary necessity. But there’s nothing to suggest he’d ever defy orders. Just the opposite, if anything.’
‘But how come he got chosen for this special mission with the Moray mines? We should’ve chosen a top operator for that job.’
‘It’s just the way the cards fell, sir. Truculent was already being fitted out as the trials boat for the mines when Hitchens took command. She’s the only boat equipped to use the mines so far. It had to be him. There was no alternative.’
‘Jesus! What a shambles! I don’t think the PM’ll swallow much of this. She’s already looking for someone to blame,’ Waverley concluded miserably. ‘What’s the latest on the search for Truculent?’
‘Nothing new, sir. The Nimrods haven’t made contact again, and at present Tenby’s not in the frame yet. Ironic that the name of the sub we’re sending to look for Hitchens should be the same as the ship in which his father died.’
‘God! If he ever finds out, it’ll probably drive him clean round the bend!’
The mountainous spine of Norway turned a sinister grey as the RAF HS.125 executive jet flew steadily north. When the sun dipped below the horizon, the snow-covered tips of the peaks glowed pink. Directly below them the water in the fjords looked inky black.
Andrew felt restricted by the narrow cabin. They’d been flying for over three hours and he was desperate to stretch his legs. Even to stand up meant stooping to prevent his head striking the roof.
The landscape below had been dramatic to watch for a while, but the more he gazed down at the vast expanse of the Norwegian Sea stretching away to the left, the more pessimistic he became about the difficulties involved in finding the Truculent.
The captain eased his portly frame through the cockpit door. A surprisingly elderly man, Andrew thought, in his late fifties at least. A former fighter pilot, perhaps, who couldn’t live without flying, but who’d grown too old for fast jets?
‘More coffee, Commander?’
‘No thanks,’ Andrew answered. ‘It just makes me need to pee, and the heads you have on board isn’t the easiest to get in and out of!’
The RAF man grinned. ‘We just call it “the can”. Not a lot of room, I agree, but the plane’s a delight to fly. Want to come up front?’
Andrew followed the pilot forward and ducked through the doorway. The second officer grinned a greeting. There was no room to enter the cockpit, so he just leaned in, supporting himself on the doorframe. The control panel was dominated by a multi-coloured radar screen in its centre.
‘I’ve just spoken to Tromso. Should be there in about twenty-seven minutes,’ the second officer announced. ‘They said they were expecting you. Mentioned a Sea King.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Going to join a ship, are you?’
‘Yep. A submarine.’
‘Rather you than me, on a night like this.’
‘Heard a weather forecast, have you?’
‘Force five, I’m afraid.’
Andrew grimaced. He disliked helicopter flights at the best of times, but to be lowered on a wire towards a conning tower, which was wobbling about like a wooden toy? Not pleasant.
‘What does that radar screen show you?’ Andrew asked.
‘It’s mainly for weather. Storm warning, but it maps the ground if you point it downwards.’
He indicated the green and yellow shapes interspersed with blue.
‘That’s the fjord where we sank the Tirpitz,’ he pointed. ‘Tromso’s just on the shoreline. We’ll start our descent in a couple of minutes.’
Andrew nodded, and studied the multitude of dials for a while. Then the radio crackled and the captain pulled earphones over his head. Andrew made a gesture of thanks and returned to the main cabin.
Cross-winds buffeted them as the main wheels touched the runway. Andrew peered towards the terminal building, where two helicopters were silhouetted against the lights of an open hangar. Then he strained to study another shape further away.
‘Bloody hell, that’s a Nimrod,’ he muttered. ‘What’s the RAF doing here?’
The HS.125 jolted to a halt. Andrew unbuckled his belt and zipped up his holdall. The whine of the jets died as the pilot cut the engines. From the cockpit came the sound of switches being turned off, and the giros spinning to a standstill.
‘Did you see that?’ the pilot called over his shoulder. ‘One of ours. Nimrod. Probably got a technical hitch.’
Andrew suspected its presence at Tromso was more significant than that. He stretched out his hand to shake the pilot’s.
‘Well, goodbye, and thanks for a nice flight.’
‘Is that bag all you’ve got? No other luggage?’ the RAF man asked.
‘That’s all.’
‘Just staying overnight then, are you?’
‘I’ve everything I need in here. S’long now.’
Andrew hurried off the plane, anxious to avoid further questions. On the tarmac was an officer in the grey-blue uniform of the Norwegian Air Force.
‘Commander Tinker? I’m Major Mjell, the Station Commander. Welcome to Tromso.’
His Norwegian accent seemed to dip in and out of the words like a wading bird.
‘Thank you. I’m glad to be here.’
‘We should hurry. The weather will get worse. Even now the helicopter pilots are not sure they can land you on your submarine. We might have to try tomorrow.’
‘I’m ready now. Let’s get a move on. I must get aboard tonight. Is the helicopter ready?’