The Titanic Secret (14 page)

‘Do you have a plan?’ Maria asked.

Tremayne grinned wryly. ‘Not really, no,’ he said. ‘For the moment, all we can do is watch and wait. First, we find out where Voss spends his time, and we make sure that we do the same, either together or individually. With a bit of luck, his fellow conspirators will at some point appear in plain sight and talk to him. Or maybe they are actually travelling as a group. At the moment, there’s no way of telling. But if we can’t identify the other two men, then we obviously can’t follow all of Cumming’s instructions. And if he’s right, just eliminating Voss might not be enough to stop the plot going ahead.’

‘And there’s another factor here, isn’t there?’ Maria asked, looking closely at Tremayne, her grey eyes flashing. ‘Mansfield Cumming told you that I had “killed in the line of duty, maybe more than once”, I think that was the phrase he used. Some day, I might want to tell you what happened and what the circumstances were, but not now. All I will say is that I knew absolutely what all of those men had done, and because of the situation I found myself in, I could see no good reason why they should be allowed to remain alive. If I found myself in the same position next week, I would do exactly the same again. I have no regrets.’

She paused, but Tremayne didn’t respond, just continued looking at her over the rim of his glass.

‘I know you have your reservations about this, Alex, because we’ve already talked about it, and I’m the same. Before I take another person’s life I need to be convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that they deserved to die. All we have in this case is what Mansfield Cumming has told us, and that was based upon a single written report which a German traitor claimed to have seen. It’s not exactly what I would describe as concrete evidence. Apart from this German, nobody has seen any written details of this plot. I don’t know about you, but I still have a nagging doubt at the back of my mind which is telling me that this could all be a big mistake.’

Tremayne nodded slowly. ‘I know exactly what you mean. Obviously Voss isn’t going to sit down at a table in the dining saloon and explain to his co-conspirators in a loud voice exactly how well the plot to destroy Britain is going. But what he might have is some written information hidden in his cabin which confirms his involvement. So as soon as we find out which stateroom he’s occupying, I say we get inside and have a look through his belongings.’

‘Are you any good with locks?’ Maria smiled.

‘Actually, I’m not bad. One thing about working for Mansfield Cumming is that he makes sure his agents are taught any skill which he thinks they might find useful. I spent a month or so with a London locksmith a couple of years ago. Assuming that the lock on his stateroom door is the same type as ours, I don’t think it’ll give me too much trouble. And if you can keep watch outside, I should be able to get in and out, and do a pretty thorough search of the room, in about fifteen or twenty minutes.’

Maria nodded, then glanced behind Tremayne towards the grand staircase. ‘Well,’ she murmured, ‘at least we know that Voss won’t be having dinner in the dining saloon this evening. He’s just walked down the staircase. I’m sure that’s him.’

Tremayne forced himself not to turn round. ‘Who’s he with?’ he asked.

‘He’s by himself. No sign of anybody else hanging around near him, no bodyguards or anyone like that. I guess he feels that in a closed community like a ship he doesn’t need close protection.’

‘What’s he doing now?’

‘He’s talking to one of the stewards.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘The steward is pointing up the staircase, where the other restaurant is located, and now Voss is heading back that way.’

‘Good,’ Tremayne said. ‘We’ll give him a few minutes to get seated, and then we’ll follow and try to get a table where we can see him. Leave your drink,’ he added, putting down his own glass. ‘We’ll get another one upstairs, and keep it to just a couple this evening.’

‘I thought you British could hold your liquor?’

‘We can,’ Tremayne replied, ‘but from now on we need our wits about us, and that means watching how much we drink.’

A few minutes later, they sat down at a table on one side of the à la carte restaurant on the Bridge Deck. As soon as they were settled, Maria leaned over to Tremayne and whispered in his ear.

‘Smile,’ she said, ‘as if I’m telling you a joke or telling you that I love you or something. Voss is right in front of us. He’s sitting by himself at a table for four about twenty feet away.’

Tremayne smiled as he been instructed, nodded and then whispered back to Maria.

‘I know,’ he said, breathing deeply and inhaling the delicious fragrance of her perfume. ‘I’d already recognized him.’

‘Good.’

Maria and Tremayne studied the menu for a few minutes and then placed their order, both of them keeping one eye on Voss the whole time. When the waiter had left their table, Maria reached out and squeezed Tremayne’s hand.

‘Is it something I said?’ he asked with a smile. ‘Or have you decided that you really
do
love me?’

‘Definitely not,’ she said firmly. ‘Our mutual friend has just waved to somebody who’s walked into the restaurant. Unless he has a talent for making new friends very quickly, this is someone that he’s known for some time.’

She fell silent as one of the waiters led a tall, corpulent but elegantly dressed man past their table, and ushered him over to where Voss was waiting, now standing up with his hand outstretched. The two men exchanged greetings, and then sat down.

Less than five minutes later, another man approached the same table. He was the polar opposite to the first arrival, short and slim with light hair and a fair complexion, and was greeted by both Voss and the other man in a friendly fashion.

For a few moments, Maria and Tremayne stared across the elegant restaurant, surrounded by the ebb and flow of conversation, by voices raised in laughter, by the wonderful aromas of the food being served and the chink and clatter of people enjoying the finest dining experience afloat, silently memorizing the faces of the two new arrivals, and both wondering if they were looking at the other two men they were going to have to kill.

Then they both picked up their soup spoons and began their dinner.

10 April 1912
HMS
D4

HMS
D4
was a D-Class submarine, the fourth of her class, which had been built by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. The D-Class boats had evolved from the earlier C-Class submarines, but offered a number of significant improvements, including diesel propulsion while surfaced instead of the far more dangerous petrol engines, and wireless transmitting and receiving equipment. They were also larger vessels with much better buoyancy.
D4
herself was the first boat in her class – and in fact the first submarine ever – to be fitted with a quick-firing deck gun forward of the conning tower for surface attacks. As a refinement, the weapon was constructed so that it could be retracted into the deck when not in use.

Also unlike the earlier types, this class of submarine was designed from the start to be capable of operating far beyond coastal waters, with a range on the surface of some 2,500 nautical miles at a speed of ten knots, about two-thirds of the boat’s maximum speed.

It was this fact, together with the wireless equipment installed in the vessel, which had allowed Mansfield Cumming to formulate his backup strategy. The fact that it would require the submarine crew to do two things they had never attempted before simply piqued his enthusiasm. Cumming was still a Royal Navy captain at heart, despite his enforced change of career.

It has to be said that Cumming’s enthusiasm for the task at hand was not entirely shared by the commanding officer of
D4
, Lieutenant Bernard Hutchinson, but his orders had allowed him no leeway.

Two days earlier, he had received an order to fuel his boat and then put to sea ‘with all possible dispatch’, to head west out of Dover, his vessel’s home port, and then to make the best speed he could down the English Channel and continue further out into the Atlantic. Additional instructions, the order had stated, would be provided by wireless.

Hutchinson had been somewhat perturbed by his sailing orders, not least because, at the boat’s maximum speed on the surface of fourteen knots, its fuel consumption would be significantly higher, and the vessel’s range markedly less, than if it was travelling at its normal cruising speed. He was also aware that unless he was ordered to turn back, he would fairly quickly reach the point of no return, when he would have insufficient fuel to make it back to any British port.

The first signal he received over the wireless clarified that point, but raised a number of further questions. When he’d decoded his new orders, he summoned the off-watch officer and the handful of NCOs under his command – the D-Class submarines had a total crew complement of only twenty-five, three officers and twenty-two men – to his tiny cabin, little more than a cubicle immediately adjacent to the control room, the nerve centre of the submarine. There he explained not what he had been told, but what he had been told to tell them, which was not anything like the full story.

‘We have been chosen by the Admiralty,’ he began, ‘to undertake a long-distance trial to assess the feasibility of supported deep-water offensive operations. Our first task will be to rendezvous with an oiler approximately seven hundred and fifty miles off the west coast of Ireland to refuel.’

He glanced around at the surprised expressions on their faces. ‘I know,’ he went on, ‘that this will be a new experience for all of us. Normally, this boat is refuelled when it’s secured to a nice solid concrete jetty in Dover Harbour. Exactly how we’ll fare, being tossed around in the Atlantic next to an oiler that will be doing exactly the same thing, I have no idea. But the technique will obviously be just the same. They will lower a fuel line, we will connect it to the refuelling point, and then they will pump diesel fuel into our tanks.’

Hutchinson looked down at the decoded signal once again. ‘Once we have completed that evolution, we will head deeper still into the Atlantic and eventually rendezvous with a second oiler, when we’ll repeat the process. After that, unless I receive any instructions to the contrary, we will turn and head eastwards, rendezvous for a second time with the first oiler, and then return to Dover.’

He folded the order and slipped it into the inside pocket of his uniform jacket. ‘Reading between the lines, gentlemen, I think their Lordships believe that a conflict is coming with either the French or the Kaiser, and if we do go to war, our submarine force will play a vital role in striking at enemy shipping. What we’re doing looks to me like a trial run for a long-distance interception. So we’d better make sure that we do it right. Dismissed.’

11 April 1912
London

Mansfield Cumming frequently slept in his office, to the very vocal despair of Mrs McTavish, on an old folding bed that creaked and groaned every time he moved. She was forever trying to persuade him to retire to his apartment – it was, after all, in the same part of the building – so that he could get a decent night’s sleep.

But throughout his naval career, Cumming had always preferred to be immediately available during operations, just in case, and at that stage the Secret Service Bureau was essentially a one-man band, or perhaps one and a half if Mrs McTavish was included. There were no other officers or staff he could call on to man the section, and he knew that urgent decisions might need to be taken at any moment. So he’d collected what he considered to be the essentials – two bottles of single malt – picked up a couple of changes of clothes and his washing kit, and basically moved in.

This operation, which had started out as a simple exercise to investigate some disturbing rumours on both sides of the Atlantic had now split into three separate but related strands.

Most importantly, he had managed to get Alex Tremayne and Maria Weston on board the
Titanic
, the ship Voss had chosen to make the transatlantic voyage back to New York. What he wasn’t sure about was whether or not either of these two agents – one of whom was employed by an entirely different agency – would feel morally obliged to carry out his orders. When he’d briefed the two of them, he’d been very aware that he’d made a far from compelling case, and the taking of a human life – in this case possibly three lives – was not something anyone, not even Tremayne and Maria, would undertake lightly.

That was one worry, and one of the main reasons for implementing his backup plan, which involved the submarine HMS
D4
. He would have preferred to use a warship, but that was not an option, for at least two reasons.

His concerns about the submarine were primarily logistical: when the boat reached the first rendezvous position with the oiler, would the crew be able to successfully refuel it? Cumming was keenly aware, both from his previous career and from discussions he’d had with serving senior officers, that such an evolution had never been attempted before, and for the submarine’s mission to succeed, it had to be refuelled not once but at least twice, and possibly three times.

And it wasn’t just the refuelling, though if that didn’t work he had no possible alternative strategy to achieve what he needed to do. Even if all of the refuelling attempts at sea were successfully completed, the submarine still had to cover a tremendous distance in a short time if it was to be in a position to carry out the interception. The speed the boat could achieve would depend entirely on the weather and the sea state in the north Atlantic.

A submarine was entirely different to a surface ship; it was intended to operate beneath the waves as well as on the surface of the ocean. The hull of a warship was designed to cut through the waves, to give the vessel good sea-keeping qualities in all conditions, and that was the principal consideration. But a submarine’s hull had to be a compromise. It was recognized that, because of a submarine’s greatly reduced endurance when submerged, most boats had hulls which mimicked those of surface vessels to keep them stable on the surface, but which still had to be suitable for sub-surface operations. The result was that, though perfectly capable of covering long distances on the surface, no submarine could match a surface ship in rough weather.