Agent of Death (41 page)

But then all the lights failed, including the emergency bulbs, and, after that, despite training, courage, and drill, I close my memory to the final minutes of the sinking, because even brave men have their limits and, in such hideous extremity, those who survive are closest to the exits, and have the strength to resist those trying to climb over them.

I don’t know how many of us got out of the boat and into the Atlantic. Perhaps quite a few. I don’t know because the boat broke up with terrible noise, and foaming, and explosions of pressurized air, and a great rearing-up of one tube that terrified us with its enormous size and bulk, and then slid down and down. The conning tower went over with a crash and a splash as the upper tube rolled, and there were more explosions and crunching of crushed compartments and men yelling, and then the great mass of the world’s biggest submarine went under. The whirlpool dragged men with it, and up came fuel oil, and debris, and parts of men, and blankets and boxes, and pieces of wood that had been crates, and some men – those who couldn’t or simply hadn’t inflated their Draeger sets – grabbed and seized at anything that floated, and some sank because a floating woollen blanket doesn’t hold up a man, and neither does a plank from a crate, and some of those who escaped were ripped open with wounds and just died anyway.

Then there were shouts and cries as men called to each other, and more loud noise: engine noise, the sound of an approaching aircraft. I looked up just as a big plane went over, very low. It was a Catalina: a twin-motor, high-wing seaplane with US markings. It went over very low, then it came round and went over again. It had seen us! I was part of the action that Captain Fenner had called for from the US shore bases. It made several passes, and I suppose it was busy on its radio, reporting what it had found. But then it went away and nothing happened above us. I swam towards a clutch of heads bobbing on the waves around the rubber dingy that was designed for six men at most, and now held von Bloch, piles of other wounded men, and was surrounded by many more men floating in their Draegers, and hanging on to one another and to the dingy.

I don’t know how many of us were there. I saw Sohler, but not Huth; I saw Sergeant Müller but not Dr Billroth. That was how it was when men died in action. Some lived, some died, and the survivors felt guilt because the wrong ones died. That was how it was, and Sohler was calling to everyone to keep together, not to float away, and then he saw me.

‘Landau!’ he said. ‘Your American ship? When did you say it will get here?’

‘Soon,’ I said. ‘They’re coming at full speed. Fast as they can.’

‘How long?’ he said.

‘Soon,’ I said. It would have done no good to tell the truth, and Sohler had the sense to leave it at that. So we huddled together and waited and, a while after that, another Catalina appeared and circled above us. They’d seen us all right and, for hours after, one Catalina replaced another. So well done Captain Fenner, and the US shore stations.

It went on like that, hour after hour. Some of the wounded died, and were heaved out of the dingy. Then we waited some more, and USS
Saint Mihiel
steamed with all its might trying to reach us, and more men died, and the Catalinas droned overhead, and we in the water hung on to each other. It was a matter of time. The water was cold but not dangerously so. It was June after all. It was summer. So just as long as
Saint
Mihiel
found us before it got dark, we ought to be OK, even though we had nothing to eat and nothing to drink, and the water was cold. So we hung on and hoped.

CHAPTER 46

The
North
Atlantic
,

230
Miles
West
of
New
York.

Friday
June
9
,
21
.
25
Eastern
Standard
Time
.

Saint
Mihiel
was only a compromise aircraft carrier because her hull had never been designed for the job: it had been designed as a cruiser. So she couldn’t carry many aircraft but she had a cruiser’s speed, and by the determined efforts of her men: from Captain to sweeper second-grade, she steamed so fast that she reached us not in nine hours, but just under eight.

Even so, we were very lucky: very lucky indeed, because the light was going by the time she arrived, going full astern to kill the enormous momentum of fifteen thousand tons at high speed, and she only found us at all because yet another Catalina was circling overhead, firing flares, and illuminating us with a searchlight.

In fact we were luckier even than that. I learned later that the Catalina that found us – the one that went over when we were first in the water – had been lining up for an attack, with 2,000 pounds of bombs on the under-wing racks; a load which would have killed every one of us if the pilot hadn’t pulled back just in time, as he saw the sub was already going down, with survivors in the water.

So
Saint
Mihiel
found us, and heaved to, and lowered the one boat that hadn’t been jettisoned for speed, because it was the ship’s luck: their mascot, a vintage, clinker-built, New England whaler reserved for pulling-boat races at Regattas. It was just as well they’d kept it because they’d never have hauled us out of the water with lines, not up the side of so big a ship, and we were too weak for scrambling nets.

The old whaler did the job, with six oars and a helmsman. In three trips it took eighteen of us – which was all of us – out of the sea and brought us aboard, where we received every care and consideration that the ship could give; myself and the Germans equally.

Then Lieutenant Commander Bushey came to take me away. The Germans were left in the sick bay if wounded – von Bloch and Sohler among them – or they were taken below somewhere if they could walk. They were clothed, fed, and given respect as prisoners of war, but that’s what they were. They were and I was not. Bushey smiled at me, shook my hand, and even threw his arms round me in delight. It was good, but part of me was embarrassed.

‘Just a minute, if you don’t mind,’ I said to Bushey, as ship’s marines took away the Germans in their blankets to give them dry, US-issue clothes.

‘Sure!’ he said, and I stood and dithered. There was too much in my mind. My father was dead, and so was my mother; he’d told me that. And later he’d refused to let anyone else take the grenades to the Triad. I tried to argue that another of the slavies should do the job, and he just shook his head, and made me ashamed I’d suggested it.

‘It’s my gift to you,’ he’d said, ‘that you should live.’ Then he kissed me on both cheeks and picked up the cardboard box.

Now I was safe on board a friendly ship, surrounded by delighted allies, who knew that between us we’d saved New York, and were probably looking forward to promotion and decorations, and, by contrast, the Germans just looked miserable, though I noticed that Huth was among them after all. I’d just not seen him in the water. So I watched them go past, with marines helping them rather than guarding them, and a part of me felt that I should say something, because so much had happened in my brief time in the sub. So I looked for Sohler, pushed past the medics, and found him laid out on a bunk surprisingly like those on the big sub. They were examining his surgical incision, and commenting on what a good job someone had done. Bushey was with me, and motioned them aside so I could talk to Sohler, who looked up at me and nodded.

‘
Herr Kapitän
…’ I began, but couldn’t think of anything else. So I shook his hand, and the Americans stared.

‘
Herr Landau
,’ said Sohler. He sort of smiled. I sort of smiled, and that was it.

*

10
Downing
Street
,

London.

Wednesday
11 July,
10
.
15
am
.

They confirmed the Military Cross. It was really mine now. Churchill told me that himself. He was very complimentary, and very pleased. So pleased that this time he spent more time looking at me than the person with me; the person who had used every known trick of string-pulling to be beside me. I was pretty well intoxicated with fame by then, because it was my first day back in London, and I’d already been presented to the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace. My constant companion was with me for that too, dressed up in high heels and high fashion and delivering a perfect Court curtsey to Their Majesties.

To be precise, it was my first
official
day in London; the first day when I was allowed out, finally drained dry, squeezed dry, pumped dry of every last piece of information I knew about Abimilech Svart, Mem Tav, and the Führerboat. That process took several days in several different offices in Whitehall, with a considerable variety of experts brought in from a considerable number of fields, and MI5, MI6, and Bletchley fighting for precedence as ever.

One fresh conclusion emerged from all this.  Among the assembled interrogators there was a Dr Lesley Jones, reader in biological chemistry at Random College, Oxford.  She stood out as the only woman present who wasn’t a typist or secretary. She was there strictly for brains, as the person best qualified to guess the chemical structure of Mem Tav -  insofar as anyone had a clue.   But she wanted to talk about the Mem Tav antidote that she insisted must exist.

“Look,” she said,  “When the Russians captured the pilot who attacked Ulvid …”

“Grauber?” I said,  “The one they tortured?”

“Yes,” she said, “He was in three layers of suits, and the innermost was supposed to be steamed for thirty minutes before he took it off.”  We all nodded, “Well they didn’t steam him – the Russians – did they?  And some of them died handling his suits afterwards, so there was active Mem Tav on the suits,” We nodded, “But Grauber didn’t die! And therefore he must have been given some drug or treatment that protected him. So there definitely is a Mem Tav antidote.”

“So why put him in the three layers of suits?” I asked.

“To protect the ground crew,” she said,  “Otherwise the pilot would himself become deadly, with Mem Tav on him, and would kill anyone he touched afterwards.”

“Ahhh,” we all said.  It was nice piece of reasoning.  Then she added something else:

“And if Grauber is still alive, then the Russians have got him, and they’re not  stupid, so they’ll be taking him to pieces bit by bit to find out how the antidote works.  So, gentlemen,  they’re well ahead of us in that respect.”

“Oh,” said all the spooks, and they all frowned.

Later, having been congratulated by King George and Winston Churchill, I had a nice new uniform, with rows of medals hanging on ribbons; the weather was fine, and my companion and I were shown out through the famous black door into the modest street where British prime ministers live. I think some of the people who showed us out were very senior. Mere servants were present but they got shoved to the back because I was the man of the moment and the senior persons wanted to bask in my light. They were politicians mostly, and ministers probably. She knew them all and greeted them by name.

Then we were outside, and a policeman was sent to fetch a taxi.

A taxi came, we got in, and that was the first time since we’d met this morning that she and I were alone. She gave the cabby an address I didn’t recognize.

‘Where are we going?’ I said.

‘You’ll see,’ she said, and looked at me as the cab turned right towards Parliament Street. She frowned. ‘You look wretched,’ she said.

‘What do you expect?’ I said.

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Darling, I have some information for you. First the boring stuff.’

‘Well?’

‘We know where Svart has gone.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. The prisoners you brought back from Punno Island have been talking to one another, and we’ve got it all recorded.’

‘Have you?’

‘Yes. Svart was never on the Führerboat, as you know.’ I nodded. ‘He embarked on a standard type XXI U-boat, just before your bombers were over Besuboft 1. He had that submarine waiting at a jetty a few miles away. It had extra fuel and his destination is Chile, where the Karolings have a settlement and Chilean government support.’

‘Wait, wait, wait!’ I said. ‘Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t MI5 and the rest know all this?’

‘They do know,’ she said, ‘but they wanted your mind clear of assumptions when they questioned you.’

‘Crafty bastards!’

‘Yes. Aren’t we, though? And there’s more.’

‘Go on.’

‘We think Svart is building another Mem Tav weapon, and has a device –
Der
Silberflugel
– to deliver it anywhere in North America.’

‘Oh, Christ!’

‘Indeed.’ She paused and looked at me. She was awaiting a prompt.

‘So go on.’

‘So you’re on duty again. You’re Britain’s expert on Mem Tav, and you have been found to be energetic, resourceful, and,’ she smiled before she delivered the last word, ‘and
devious
. The official report says that you are … “remarkably cunning and devious.”’ I didn’t know what to think about that, except that I didn’t like it. ‘Nothing to say?’ she added.

‘What I want,’ I said, ‘is to go back on bombing ops with my squadron.’

She just laughed at that: real, loud laughter. ‘No, darling. You won’t be doing that. You don’t use a racehorse to pull a farm cart. Anyway, that was the boring stuff. Now for the really important information.’ She turned and stared at me as the cab went through West London traffic, and the driver cursed at someone who got in his way.

‘Sod off, you bleeder!’ he said, then, ‘Sorry madam, but some o’ these bleeders didn’t ought to be on the bleedin’ road.’ She slid shut the glass partition between him and us.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘how fond are you of your Uncle Jack?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just tell me. How fond are you of Jack Comings? My husband?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘he was nice to me when I came here. To England.’

‘I see. Middling. Well I’m afraid he’s given me an ultimatum.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t matter except that I don’t like ultimatums.’

‘No. I suppose you wouldn’t.’

‘No. So tell me, darling, how much does a wing commander earn?’

‘About eight hundred and sixty a year.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘What d’you mean “Oh dear”? Eight hundred and fifty’s quite lot!’

‘Hmm,’ she said, and looked out at the street. ‘Nearly there.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To my flat.’

‘This isn’t where you live!’

‘It is now. Economies must be made.’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘what the hell are we bloody doing?’

‘We are going to my flat, where you will spend the night, and, for the avoidance of doubt – as the lawyers say – I advise that you will sleep with me, in my bed.’ I smiled. Who wouldn’t? ‘But in the morning I’m afraid you will be put on yet another aeroplane with yet another briefing file, because you are going to Chile … Oh! … Do you speak Spanish among all your languages?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You’ll learn. You’re good at tricks like that. And you’re going anyway.  We want to know all about
Silberflugel
and the Mem Tav antidote. So you’re going after Abimilech Svart.