The white coat dropped his voice. “This midget submarine is designed to carry a normal type of torpedo slung beneath it. Observe the brackets.” He tapped the rearmost ones like a schoolmaster. “The torpedo was released, fired if you prefer, at a target while at sea.” He looked impassively at Beaumont. “As you will know better than any of us.”
Beaumont did not blink. “Quite so.”
“We will know more once we can move all this to our proper location.”
Drummond recalled his own uncertainty before the attack, his need to get away from Salter’s questions. To think. It had all been there for everyone to see. The sequence of past attacks, the pattern. Fine weather. Calm sea and good night visibility. He looked at the corpse. The skin was gleaming in the lights like wax. He had seen plenty of dead men. Too many of his own sort. This one should have left him unmoved, so what was the matter? Embarrassment? It could not surely be pity for a man who had burned so many, and had probably killed himself by accident? But it was wrong. The way they were staring at the body. Bored, disinterested beyond a piece of factual evidence. Even the girl, who had risen to follow the white coat to the table, was looking at the corpse as she might at a piece of dead fish.
“Note the man’s arms.”
The voice brought them closer. Drummond saw that the corpse had several garish tattoos on either forearm. His eyes were slitted half open, as if he were listening.
“A ranker, I would think. No German officer would consider tattoos quite the thing.”
Someone else laughed.
Beaumont murmured savagely, “Stupid sod.”
The white coat wheeled round. “But an important point! Only one man needed to navigate and steer, to aim and fire the torpedo. And not even an officer! Just imagine what the enemy will achieve with these weapons, if they can manufacture and perfect them by the hundred!”
A voice asked, “No other identification, I suppose?” He was turning over the rubber suit with a pencil.
“None.”
Beaumont asked shortly, “Where do we come in?”
“We?” The man smiled politely.
Beaumont gestured with his free hand. “LieutenantCommander Drummond commands the ship which carried out the operation. I expect he’d like to know, too. ” He did not hide the sarcasm.
“In due course I am sure that the proper authority will be requiring further reports on what you saw at the time.” He looked blandly at Drummond. “Your surgeon was sensible to keep the body intact in its cockpit. The photographs which have just been taken will be helpful. It would appear that the torpedo was released too close to the target. Panic, probably.”
Drummond walked slowly towards the table, feeling the onlookers, senior and junior alike, falling back to let him through. He stood looking down at the dead face. Young tanned by off-duty hours aboard his base ship.
He said quietly, “The wind had shifted slightly. ” He recalled the feel of it on his cheek, the roar of fans as Warlock had charged to the rescue.
Around him there was complete silence, as if they wer; afraid to disrupt the picture he was creating.
“I noticed how the swell was getting up. I had to watch it because of dropping a boat. I couldn’t risk it capsizing. This man must already have been well away from his base ship. Alone in this little pod, a floating test-bed, in all probability. It looks big enough in here. Try and picture it at sea, yourselves at the helm.” His voice had grown harder. “I expect you were right, sir. He did fire too close, in that swell, and with the little dome only a foot or so out of the water, he would be nearly blind. He tried a bow shot, but hit the tug instead. The explosion probably ruptured the casing and flooded his cockpit.” He reached out and dragged a soiled sheet over the man’s nakedness. “But panic? I don’t see that at all.”
They were staring at him, as if he had just shouted some terrible oath or obscenity.
They don’t understand a bloody word. How can they? Their minds were suited to detection, and discounted the human element completely. It was totally alien to his own world. He had seen the flaw even though he had not the experience to recognise it. But once it was in his mind, it would not shift. Observation-Conclusion-Method. He would be ready if there was a next time.
The white coat said quietly, “Thank you, Commander Drummond. You must be very tired.”
Beaumont looked at his watch. “Of course he isn’t tired. My commanding officers are ready at all times.” He touched Drummond’s arm, a bright grin on his face. “Right, Keith?”
He nodded, angry with himself at his outburst. Maybe he was not as fit as he had imagined. Bomb-happy. Round the bend. It had happened to plenty of people.
Beaumont replaced his cap at a rakish angle. “I’ll be in touch, gentlemen. ” As the door swung behind them he added, “Sooner than they bloody well think!”
Drummond saw Salter lounging by a small telephone booth, an angry-faced military police sergeant glaring at him. Salter held out the telephone, ignoring the redcap.
“Got him for you, just like you said.” He yawned. “Cut through all the red tape and, er, caps.”
Beaumont stared at his reflection in the glazed tiles.
“Beaumont speaking. Ah, yes, sir. Yes, I agree. A damn good show all round, I thought. Went like a Swiss watch!” He winked at Salter. “Tomorrow then. Look forward to it. ” He put down the telephone.
To Drummond he said calmly, “I’ll come back to the ship with you. I feel like a very large drink, on you.”
Drummond fell in step beside him, while Salter slouched along in the rear.
“We are going to London, Keith.” He threw up a snappy salute to two sentries. “To get things moving.”
Salter called, “I’ve laid my bit on.”
Beaumont did not seem to hear him. “Tattoos, ranker, what the hell do they know! I’d like to see them get those poor devils off a burning ship like we did, eh?” He sounded angry.
Drummond smiled, despite his tiredness. “Yes, sir.”
Beaumont quickened his pace. “We’ll show ‘em.”
Behind him, Drummond heard Salter mutter, “What a way to fight a war.”
He was inclined to agree.
6
Not What They Were
The map room, which was situated in a concrete bunker below the Admiralty buildings, felt almost as cold as the Falmouth mortuary. While he was waiting to be introduced by Beaumont, Drummond let his gaze move slowly around the spartan interior, noting the many wall charts and plans, the few personnel who seemed to be needed in this very special place. He and Beaumont had been driven by a madcap marine all the way from Falmouth, pausing only for a brief lunch at a small inn before charging on again for London. And now, after a series of checks, murmured acknowledgements over telephones and further examination of passes, they were in the hub of the Navy’s special operations. He had lost count of the stairways and lifts, and could not begin to guess how far they were below the other living world. A world of shabby buildings scarred by bombs, yet cheerfully determined to be “Open as Usual.” Streets thronged with people, most of whom were in uniform. Poles and Free French, Americans by the hundred, Norwegians and Danes, and plenty of British from all three services. It had given a better indication of Germany’s conquests than this noiseless bunker gave of any sort of Allied gains.
He realised that Beaumont was saying, “This is Drummond, sir.”
A slight figure in a creased grey suit stepped from the group and held out one hand. Like the man, it was small and wizened. Beaumont said, “Vice-Admiral Brooks.”
Drummond returned the handshake. It was surprisingly strong. Vice-Admiral Brooks. “Nick.” It was hard to picture him in a flag officer’s uniform with all its gold lace. Maybe that was why he wore a suit. The other would swamp him completely.