Wreckers Must Breathe (19 page)

‘That's just what he's asked us,' he replied. ‘One of the first things he said when we established contact was that he represented the
Daily Recorder
. Evidently they sent someone out to look for you.' He resumed his tapping with the spoon. I waited. So Logan remembered his morse, did he?

He stopped tapping and listened. Then he took my pencil and wrote down slowly in block letters—IS CRAIG REALLY THERE. THIS IS MAUREEN WESTON. ‘Good God, it's a woman!' said Logan. Then he wrote: PATTERSON SENT ME TO INVESTIGATE YOUR DISAPPEARANCE.

I was amazed. ‘Ask her how she found us,' I said.

The spoon went tap-tap again and presently Logan began writing the reply: ‘Worked back from the spy at Carillon. This led me to phoney mine owner. And this is the mine. It lies four miles north of Saint Just.'

‘So you were right,' I said. ‘This base is in Cornwall. Ask her whether any one knows where she is.'

Back came the reply: ‘Please repeat slower. I am working the code from a diary.'

Logan wielded the spoon again with longer pauses between each letter. Then came the reply: ‘Yes. But the Germans have blown up galleries in old workings so that it will look as though we have been trapped by a fall. Have you any plans?'

Heavy, light, pause, heavy heavy heavy went the tapping of Logan's spoon. It was so short that I knew what that must be. Then we were interrupted by the opening of the guard-room door. Shortly afterwards our evening meal was brought to us.

When we were alone again I said: ‘You know, we've only got till Sunday evening at the latest?'

He nodded with his mouth full of potato stew and contrived to grin at the same time.

I looked at him closely. ‘Do you remember who the owner of Carillon was?' I asked.

‘Ar, his name was Cutner—is that right?'

‘Your memory is not so bad after all,' I said, ‘I suppose it's all come back to you?'

‘That's right.' He nodded and grinned, and there was that twinkle in his eyes that I had not seen since Cadgwith.

I was still not altogether convinced. It seemed incredible that the man could have put an act over on me so completely. After all, I had been his constant companion for nearly two weeks. Anyway, I failed to see the necessity of it. I tried him with another question. ‘Can you tell me the name of the coastguard at Cadgwith?' I asked, and there was a trace of anxiety in my voice, for I was desperately anxious for someone to share with me the responsibility of immobilizing the base.

‘Let me see,' he hesitated, his Slav features puckered with amusement. ‘It wouldn't be Ted Morgan, now, would it?'

I felt a sudden great relief. ‘Thank God for that,' I breathed. ‘But why the devil didn't you tell me you were only shamming?'

‘I would have,' he said, ‘but I figured it out that I'd have a better chance of putting it across if you thought I was going balmy too. Anyway, I'm no actor. I knew the only thing was to make myself believe I was balmy. I tell you, at times I was afraid I really was.'

I gave a short laugh. ‘That's what most actors have discovered,' I said. ‘But what was the idea?'

‘I wanted to avoid giving them the information they were after. And also I thought it might help.'

‘Well, it doesn't seem to have,' I said.

‘Hasn't it?' He beckoned me across to his bed. ‘Here's the result of my carving,' he said. He bent down and tilted the bed up so that he could get hold of the leg nearest the wall and farthest from the door. With the help of his knife he began to prise very carefully at one of the letters of his name which he had cut on the inside of the leg, low down. And in a second the whole section with his name had come away, and in a hollow cut below it was a key fitted snugly into the wood.

He put the section back and tapped it carefully into position. It fitted perfectly and very tightly. Unless any one were looking for it, it was unlikely to be discovered. ‘What key is it?' I asked.

‘The key to this cell.'

‘But how did you get hold of it?'

He returned to his stew. ‘There are four cells along here,' he said, ‘and the locks are all the same. Remember those ratings that were put in the other cells to cool off after a brawl last Monday? The guards used the same key for all the cells. And I noticed another thing. The guards were sometimes careless. They left the keys in the cell doors instead of returning them to the guard-room. So I started my craze for modelling and hollowed out my little hiding-place. Because I was supposed to be daft I got away with it. And two days after I had finished it I had the chance of lifting a key from the lock of the neighbouring cell. It was missed about two hours later. You remember we were searched on Wednesday night and the whole cell turned upside down by the guard? But by then it was safely tucked away.'

‘I wonder they haven't put bolts on the door,' I said.

‘Probably the guard didn't report the loss.'

I sat down on my bed again and considered the matter. It was certainly a step forward. We had the means of getting out of our cell at any time of the night. But having got out, what then? The various stores were all locked and we hadn't the key to any of these. That meant we could not get at either the fuel or the munitions. And the guards went the rounds every hour. Moreover, the arrival of Maureen Weston and her three miners complicated matters in that any plan to destroy the whole base meant the loss of their lives as well as ours.

The same thought seemed to have crossed Big Logan's mind, for he said: ‘What's this Maureen Weston like?'

I cast my mind back to the time when she had been on the staff of the
Recorder
. ‘She's small and dark and very attractive,' I said. ‘She had Irish blood in her and as women go she's pretty tough.' I suddenly remembered that big men like small women. ‘She's just your type if you're feeling repressed.'

He grinned. ‘Sounds interesting,' he said. ‘But just at the moment I was thinking out some way of destroying her and every one else in this base.'

‘So was I,' I said. ‘But how are we going to do it?'

‘We should be able to deal with the guard. There are only two who actually do the rounds. All we have to do is to get the keys off them, go into the munitions store and blow the place up.'

‘It sounds easy, put like that,' I said. ‘But suppose we aren't able to deal with the guards silently and they rouse the base?'

‘We'll have to take the chance. Even if they were able to give the alarm we'd still have plenty of time.'

‘True,' I nodded, ‘but, on the other hand, we can't afford to take chances. Can't we manage it without attacking the guards? What I've been thinking about is those six-inch guns on the submarines. You know how to handle them, don't you? The after gun on U 21 is in working order and the boat lies with its stern facing straight down the main cave. One shot with that would surely be sufficient to block the underwater entrance. That would stop the submarines leaving without destroying them.'

He shook his head. ‘We must destroy the submarines,' he said. ‘They might blast their way out through the cliff. And the only way to destroy the boats is to blow the place up. Your scheme would only work if we could get out of the place ourselves and warn the naval authorities.'

‘Listen!' I said. The relief of being able to discuss the position with someone instead of just lying and racking my brains had made me somewhat excited. ‘Maureen has brought three miners with her. If we could release them and, after firing the gun, get into the landward exit with picks and so on, we might be able to get through the falls they have made this afternoon.'

At that he laughed. ‘Do you know what a bad fall of rock in a Cornish tin mine is like?' he demanded. ‘There's maybe a hundred feet of roof brought down along our exit gallery. And the blockage will be caused by huge chunks of granite. And you suggest three miners get through it with picks!'

‘Well, there are mobile drills in the base,' I said, a trifle put out.

At that he stopped grinning and said: ‘So there are.' He sat silent for a moment, stroking his beard. ‘The trouble is they'd guess where we had gone. As soon as they had searched the base, they'd be after us, and we shouldn't have a dog's chance.'

‘I'm not so sure,' I said. ‘In the first place they would probably be too worried about other things to come after us for some time, and by then we could have partially blocked the exit gallery behind us. For another, we could lay for the guards and if successful, arm ourselves at the expense of the base. What I mean is that, though I think it rather risky to be dependent upon a successful attack on the guards for our means of destroying the base, I think we might deal with the guards as well as man the gun. If we succeeded with the guards we should have about ten minutes, maybe quarter of an hour, in which to ransack the base for the equipment and weapons we required. If we didn't succeed, then we'd be no worse off. With the gun loaded and sighted, it would only be a matter of an instant to fire.'

Logan snapped his fingers. ‘Sure and I believe you've got it,' he said. ‘The next thing to do is to get in touch with this Weston girl again and find out what part of the base she came out into.'

At that moment we were interrupted by the arrival of the guard to collect our empty stew cans. ‘You'd better get some sleep,' he said in German, pointing to our beds and laying his hands against his cheek to indicate what he meant. ‘Two submarines are coming in tonight.' He held up two fingers in front of my face and said: ‘Boats.'

I thanked him and he departed smiling. He was one of the nicest of our guards, a large fellow with a frank open face and a ridiculous little moustache. I passed the information on to Logan. ‘Thank God, they're both coming in tonight,' I said. ‘That leaves tomorrow night free. Unless of course U 47 doesn't leave tonight, as planned.'

He got up and went over to the door. In his hand he held the knife he had used to hollow out the leg of his bed. But there seemed much more activity than usual in the gallery. In fact, it was not until nearly ten o'clock that he was able to establish contact with Maureen Weston. Movement in the gallery outside remained remarkably active, and as a result he was not able to keep up a sustained conversation. What he learned was very damping to our spirits. The mine gallery by which she and her companions had reached the base entered it by way of a recess in the guard-room. Moreover, the mine gallery was practically blocked about two hundred feet from the base.

This meant that the possibility of getting anything like a mobile drill through was small and in any case the chances of ever having the opportunity of entering the mine by way of the guard-room seemed somewhat remote. I understood now the cause of the activity in the gallery outside and the continual movement of men in and out of the guard-room opposite. It was from the guard-room that they were prepared to meet an attack. Probably they had machine-guns ready mounted in the mine galleries in case miners cleared the falls.

But this activity did not explain the faint but persistent clatter of electric welders and the muffled roar of machinery. Usually at this time of night the base was comparatively quiet, save for the hum of the dynamos and the murmur of voices. But for the fact that my watch said it was ten-twenty I should have said it was day-time. It could mean only one thing. ‘They're rushing the repairs to U 21,' I said.

Logan nodded. ‘I'm afraid they are,' he agreed. ‘Which means that they're going to send the boats out tomorrow night and not Sunday.'

‘Maybe they'll get some away tonight.'

‘Hell! I wish I hadn't left it so late.'

‘Why did you?' I asked. ‘For the same reason that I did?'

‘What was that?'

‘Oh, just that I put it off until I couldn't put it off any longer.'

‘Perhaps,' he said. ‘Also I wanted to get the maximum number of boats in the base. Your friend Maureen doesn't seem to have helped us much.'

‘Except in so far as her disappearance may make people suspicious about this mine. Patterson is no fool.'

‘But why should they suspect that there is something wrong with the mine? The girl goes down with three miners to look over it and doesn't appear again. Two deep rumbling sounds are heard—an explosion or a fall? A search party is organized. They find the workings blocked by a big fall. Every one is then satisfied as to the reason why she and her companions never got back.'

‘That depends on Patterson,' I said. ‘Ask her how often she was reporting to Patterson and how much she has told him about the mine.'

But to get a message through now took some time owing to the activity outside. In all I think it was nearly half an hour before we got the full reply. It came through bit by bit as opportunity offered. It read: ‘Patterson has no idea mine is submarine base. All he knows is that I was suspicious of it and that on the first occasion I went down I found falls that should not have been there and that looked unnatural.'

‘And that's that,' said Logan, returning to his bed.

‘Patterson is no fool,' I reiterated. ‘And he's got the sharpest nose for news of any man I know. I think he'll move heaven and earth to get the mine opened up.'

‘Ar, that may be so, but who is going to do the opening up? To clear a big fall of rock takes time and costs a deal of money. Who is going to pay for it—not the paper, I know.'

‘Well, it's our only hope,' I said, ‘if they send the boats out tomorrow night.'

At that moment the key grated in the lock and one of the guards came in. The first of the two U-boats was coming in and we were marched down to the docks.

We had a wait of more than fifteen minutes in the cold damp atmosphere of No. 3 dock with the constant chugging of the donkey engine echoing from the main cave. In the course of this time I gained several pieces of interesting information. All work had been suspended on U 47 and she would not be ready to go out until Sunday night at the earliest. The whole engin-eering effort of the base was being concentrated on U 21 and the word had apparently gone out that she must be ready for active service by tomorrow afternoon—that was Saturday. This confirmed my belief that the whole fleet would go out on the Saturday and not the Sunday night. There was a rumour that the boat coming in now was the one that had sunk the
Athenia
. And there was also talk that the second boat was already waiting to come in. That meant that in a few hours' time there would be no less than six of Germany's largest ocean-going U-boats in the base, as well as the store barge.