An Evil Shadow (26 page)

“What’s the commotion?” he asked one of the crew.

The man fired him a dirty look and shrugged. If he knew, he
certainly had no intention of sharing the information with Bracken. The crew
treated Mueller and himself like lepers. Their attitude did not perturb
Bracken; he had endured much worse for the greater part of his life.

Mueller’s return interrupted Bracken’s maudlin recollections. The
German’s had replaced his customary arrogant sneer with a smirk.

“
Halsschmerzen
,” Mueller said derisively. “That fool Kroll
has a sore throat.”

Bracken had overheard the crew talking about U-boat commanders
with such an affliction. Men in a hurry to have the Führer hang a Knight’s
Cross round their neck, the award for sinking one hundred thousand tonnes of
enemy shipping.

Mueller leant into Bracken and whispered, “The Tommies will know
soon enough that there is a U-boat operating in the area, but there will be no
witnesses left to tell them what bearing it was on.”

Mueller’s eyes were a cruel hard grey, and they sent a shiver down
Bracken’s back. The German was capable of snuffing out a life without giving it
a second thought. They had first met just after Christmas at the Abwehr
training camp at Quertz Lake near Brandenburg. Bracken had been unceremoniously
plucked from vital war construction work at a Hamburg shipyard and been ordered
to report for a crash three-week instruction course. Specialists had instructed
him and three other men, two Frenchmen and a Pole, basic field-craft; how to
handle explosives; how to use a radio transmitter: how to survive as a saboteur
behind enemy lines. The day came when they were to be taught how to kill.

The four men assembled outdoors in the freezing cold, dressed only
in shorts and vests, and await their instructor. They had remained there for a
hour before a tall, blond-haired man appeared.

“My name is Mueller,” he announced. He was dressed in British Army
khaki battledress, complete with gaiters and boots. Walking along the line of
men, he gave each a depreciatory appraisal, before taking up a position in
front of them.

“Have any of you dog turds ever killed a man?” he asked.

The Pole tentatively held up a hand.

“A knife in the back or a razor across the throat?” Mueller asked.

“Neither, it was a lump of rock.”

The German nodded approvingly. “Lesson number one. You will never
be unarmed as long as you use your imagination.”

Mueller pointed at Bracken. “Step forward. I want you to attack me
as if your life depended on it.”

Bracken hesitated. He did not see any rocks lying on the ground,
but he felt sure skills he had picked up the hard way in Belfast would stand to
him.

“Come on turd. I’ve just fucked your sister, now I’m going to fuck
your mother.”

The mention of his mother did it for Bracken. He bent into a
crouch, tucked his chin in, and lunged at the German.

Mueller swivelled as gracefully as a bullfighter, evaded the
clumsy charge, and retaliated by slamming a knuckle-duster enclosed fist into
Bracken’s kidney.

Bracken stumbled to all fours on the frozen earth, feeling like a
wall had fallen on him. Pain blinded him and his legs refused to support him.
His back went into spasm as he tried to raise himself.

 
Mueller drew back a boot
and sank it between Bracken’s legs. The Irishman took no further part in the
first lesson.

Instructor for both the armed and unarmed combat sessions at the
camp, Mueller continued to use Bracken or one of the other men as hapless
victims as he taught them to kill with whatever was to hand. Anything from a
kitchen knife to a rolled-up magazine. He stressed that the mechanics of
killing was relatively simple, but only if you had the resolve. The secret was
to never hold back when launching an attack.

“Or to have Mueller in your sights,” one of the Frenchmen whispered.

It had come as a bolt from the blue when Bracken learnt,
twenty-four hours before the U-boat sailed, that Mueller was to accompany him.
Ostensibly, he was there to assist Bracken and to act as a liaison between the
Irishmen and a well-placed fifth-columnist, but Bracken felt there was a more
ominous explanation. He suspected that some of the Abwehr planners were not
convinced that his motivation was powerful enough to see the job through. As
long as he proved valuable then, he would be unharmed, but if the undertaking
failed, or if he compromised himself in some way, Mueller would show him little
mercy. He was expendable.

Bracken rubbed his bristled face uneasily, before turning round to
the suitcases and starting to undo the leather straps of the one nearer him. He
raised the lid and pushed aside his gas mask and his spare clothing packed
neatly on top, exposing a parcel wrapped in oilcloth. He gently undid the outer
layers of the parcel, as he had done every six hours since he had boarded the
submarine. The three yellowish blocks of amatol were still untouched and dry.
The explosive, a fifty-fifty split of TNT and ammonium nitrate, was safe to
handle, but it was prone to absorbing moisture, thus reducing its
effectiveness.

Mueller undid the other case to check its contents. Wrapped in
cotton wool were a dozen percussion caps, the detonators for the explosive.
There was also a cardboard case of colour-coded time-delay fuses. Each fuse
contained an exact amount of acetone, which, when released, would dissolve a
celluloid dish-shaped stopper that held back a primed striker. Simple, but
effective.

They were closing the suitcases when the Bo’sun appeared, his face
as dark as a thundercloud. He grabbed Mueller by the arm. “Kapitan Kroll wants
to see you in the control room.”

Mueller fired back a look of such venom that the man dropped his
hand and took an involuntary step backwards.

“Now,” the Bo’sun mumbled.

Still on the upper-deck, Kroll was incandescent with rage at
having allowed himself to fall victim to Mueller’s subterfuge. There was
nothing he could do for the merchant seamen, that much was certain. The
Algonquin
was already well down by the stern and could not last more than a few
minutes before she slipped below the surface. There was no sign of life on
board and no longer any in the water. Kroll forced his eyes away from the scene
of carnage. His priority was now to put as much distance as possible between
his U-boat and the sinking. The smoke pall would be visible for miles, and it
would not be long before a RAF plane came snooping.
 

He gave the order. “Starboard fifteen degrees. Fifteen knots.”

The drawn faces of the men on deck showed that Kroll was not alone
in feeling revulsion at having fired on surrendering civilians. He was certain
that it would hit morale, and no doubt some would ridicule him for allowing
Mueller to so easily dupe him.

Kroll handed the bridge to his watch officer and went below to
confront Mueller. If he could have, he would have had the sinister Bavarian and
his Irish companion thrown overboard.

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