Death trap, p.3
Death Trap, page 3
She told them what Thirk had told her: how his ship had sunk a felucca off the coast of Libya and how they had slaughtered the crew to the last man.
Il Piccolo, who had the dark, pock-marked face of a southern Italian, flushed with anger and hissed in Italian, ‘Porco Madonna, they must pay for this!’
His colleague nodded his agreement and snapped, ‘You know his ship?’
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘Bon!’ Il Grande took out a thick wad of notes and handed it to her. She didn’t bother to count them. The Italians always paid well. She dropped the notes into her handbag, as he continued, ‘You will go down to the harbour now and keep an eye on that vessel. Any sign of movement and you will telephone us immediately. You see,’ he explained, ‘we are sure that we are inevitably trailed by the English agents. We want no obvious connection made between Italy and what is going to happen.’
She gave the two Italians that gentle winning smile of hers and asked, ‘And what is going to happen?’
Il Piccolo gave her a hard look and hissed, ‘What do you think is going to happen?’ He ran his finger along his throat as if slitting it, and added fiercely, ‘That!’
‘Now go,’ the other one said. ‘We must inform Rome immediately of what you have told us. But remember to report any movement immediately.’
She got up and the two agents were so preoccupied with the information she had brought that neither of them attempted to pinch her delightful bottom, as invariably they usually tried to do, although she swayed it back and forth in a provocative manner.
Fifteen minutes later the message was coded and on its way to Rome.
Mussolini was in a bad mood. The sinking of the gun runner clearly meant that the perfidious English knew he was trying to foster open rebellion in Egypt and that they were prepared to go to extreme lengths to stop him. He had already flung an inkpot complete with a gold pen at a tardy flunky that afternoon. Then he had tongue-lashed his deputy chief-of-intelligence for not being able to provide him with any further information about the sinking.
‘Incompetent idiot,’ he had roared at the frightened intelligence officer, the jowls of his broad, dark face shaking with rage. Now, still angry, he strode over to the bedroom of one of his current mistresses.
She was waiting for him as planned, her nubile young body naked under a sheer silken wrap. He could see the contours of her beautiful breasts quite clearly. ‘Caro Benito,’ she said tenderly and attempted to stroke his angry, flushed face.
Roughly he pushed aside her soft hand. ‘No time for that nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘I must have you straightaway. My nerves are on edge. Take that thing off. Let’s get at it – quick!’
She was very young and inclined to pout and she did so now. He didn’t notice. As usual he was too self-centred and selfish to notice such things. Dutifully she undid the wrap and lay back on the silken sheet, displaying her full, luscious charms. ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered, as he tugged off his boots and breeches until he was clad only in the black shirt of the fascisti.
He didn’t respond. Instead he commanded, ‘Open your legs.’
She was slow in doing so. Roughly he forced them open himself. He was already stiff, as was customary with him and thrust himself into her, squeezing her ample breasts brutally so that she gasped with pain.
Within two minutes it was all over. He cleaned himself and dressed again, while she lay with her legs still spread on the soiled sheet, weeping softly.
It was then that a soft tap came at the door of the boudoir. ‘Cover yourself up,’ he commanded curtly, ‘and stop that crying. You will smile. The servants must always think I give pleasure to my women, which I always do, naturally.’ He jerked up that heavy, dark jaw of his proudly, just as he did when he was addressing the Roman crowds from the balcony.
‘Come,’ he ordered.
The great door with its ornate carvings was opened by an officer of the bodyguard, a great strapping fellow like they all were. His eyes glittered as fell on the woman, obviously naked under the sheet. Mussolini noticed the look and told himself, ‘No, she’s not for you, my great ox.’
‘What is it?’ he demanded.
The huge officer held out the silver platter. ‘Message just in from the coding room, Duce,’ he said in a grave voice, hardly able to take his eyes off the girl on the gold bed. ‘From our people in Egypt.’
‘Give it me!’ Mussolini snatched the sealed envelope from the platter, tore it open with fingers that trembled slightly, and read it swiftly. A smile started to spread across his broad, peasant face.
‘Good news, Duce?’ the officer asked a little hesitantly.
‘Very good news. We have them now. And they shall pay.’ He crumpled the message up and thrust the paper into the pocket of his breeches. He saw the young ox was still gazing at the girl, as if he couldn’t jump into bed with her quickly enough. He smiled maliciously and turned to the girl.
‘Cara, do not bother to dress. I shall be returning to you, beloved, in a short time. Then we will relax, eh?’ She simpered and blew him a kiss. ‘I long for you already, caro Benito,’ she gushed foolishly.
Mussolini shot the young officer who towered above him a malicious look and told himself that had put the young ox in his place. Then he strode out of the boudoir briskly, as if he were at head of his army, his mind already full of the plans he had to punish the treacherous English.
* * *
On the other side of the world, the decoding department of another and even more ruthless dictator was working on that message which had just come in from Alexandria. Outside that grim building, which housed the department and the headquarters of the dreaded OGPV (originally the Cheka), Russia’s secret police, it was snowing again, coming down in a relentless fury, falling on the miserable denizens of the city. A drunken sailor waving a bottle of vodka. An armoured car creeping along at a snail’s pace, the machine gun in its turret swinging from left to right. A whore fondling a sailor in a doorway, smoking in a bored fashion as she did so.
Standing at the window, Aronson, tall, blond and muscular, wrinkled his nose with distaste, as he waited for the ‘Prof’ to decipher the coded message. When would that ‘Holy Mother Russia’ he loved so fervently ever become a normal, decent country? In his own time Russia had been ruled by weak-kneed fools, even traitors, then despots. He sighed. Russia had survived them and would survive the new despot, Stalin, too, because there were men like him who loved the black earth of Mother Russia and those ordinary people out there, drunken, ignorant and lazy as most of them were.
Such men, Aronson told himself, didn’t want glory or power for themselves. They wanted the welfare of Russia and a decent life for its poor, oppressed people. But first Russia’s enemies – and there were many of them, all powerful – had to be dealt with and taught to keep their nose out of the affairs of the mother country. Aronson sighed again.
Across the snowbound road, a whore had pulled up her skirt and was showing her naked body to a bunch of black-marketeers sheltering next to the kiosk where they sold vodka. But the men weren’t interested. These days in Leningrad you could get women, whores or just ordinary women down on their luck, for a couple of cigarettes.
There was a soft knock on the door. It would be the Prof. Aronson turned swiftly, walked to his desk, switched on the table light and said, ‘Come in.’
The professor, tall, middle-aged, bespectacled, stooped in the fashion of an academic who had spent years poring over documents, entered and intoned the current formula, ‘All power to the people.’ Wearily he raised his clenched fist.
‘All power to the people,’ Aronson echoed the formula, just in case there was anyone listening in the corridor outside. There were informers everywhere. He grinned and said, ‘Sit down, Prof,’ and indicated the bottle of vodka on the desk, ‘Have a drink.’
The Profs faded eyes widened behind his glasses. ‘Never touch the stuff, comrade,’ he said. ‘But so that you are not offended, I will – just this once.’ He poured himself half a tumbler and while Aronson watched, amused, he drained it in one gulp.
‘Well?’ Aronson demanded.
‘Yes, I’ve broken it. I couldn’t bring it out of the decoding room. You know—’
Aronson nodded his understanding. Even in the OGPU they spied upon one another, and each section chief jealously guarded the secrets of his own department. ‘Carry on.’
The Prof rubbed his bearded chin with tobacco-stained, thin fingers. ‘In essence it read, “British ship named Swordfish left Alexandria last night setting a south-westerly course.” Oh, yes, and there was something else, “Ship commanded by a man named Smith.”’ The Prof cocked his head to one side in that funny quizzical manner of his, as if Aronson might have been one of his brighter students, and he was wondering how he might react.
But even with the Prof Aronson knew he had to be on his guard. So he contended himself with, ‘You have told me something very important, Prof. Thank you.’ He reached in his desk and brought out a little white box. It contained cocaine, his means of bribing and paying the former academic. ‘Thank you. A little present for you.’
The Professor took it greedily and thrust it hurriedly into his waistcoat pocket, as Aronson said, ‘You may go.’
‘Thank you, Comrade,’ the other man said and went out with unaccustomed speed for him. Aronson knew why; he’d soon find somewhere where he could sniff the drug through the little tube that he carried with him always.
Aronson sat back in his chair, his brain racing. Outside, the wind blew the snow against the window with renewed fury, but Aronson didn’t hear it. He was concentrating on the way ahead. Smith and the crew of the Swordfish had been foiling his plans persistently ever since 1918. Now the Italians were on to him and his damned craft, but somehow he knew that Smith would be a match for the Italians. He was the typical cunning Englishman but where was he sailing and what was his mission?
A little frustrated, Aronson bit his bottom lip.
But for the time being he had no answer to that overwhelming question.
Five
On the afternoon of the first day after they had left Alexandria the weather in the Mediterranean started to deteriorate. A sharp wind came howling across the sea from Africa, lashing up white-topped waves and throwing spume high into the air. On Swordfish’s bridge, Smith frowned and said to Dickie Bird, ‘We could have done without this. I think we’re in for a real bad one.’
Dickie Bird, sipping moodily on a mug of lukewarm cocoa, nodded his agreement. ‘Yes, I think you’re right, Smithie. It’s the bora or the levante or one of those winds they taught us about at Dartmouth that blow from Africa to Europe.’
‘’Spect you’re right, Dickie,’ Smith said and turning to CPO Ferguson ordered, ‘Chiefie, go and see that everything is correctly secured.’
‘Ay, ay, that I will. I ken that lazy bunch o’ a crew of old. Yon lazy matelots never do anything proper.’ He hurried away.
Now the weather started to get worse by the hour. They were heading straight into the blackness of the storm, their speed reduced to ten knots at times, as the gallant little Swordfish fought against mountainous seas which rose like impenetrable green cliffs above their heads and crashed down on the deck with a clash like gigantic cymbals. Overhead, leaden, watery clouds streamed by, propelled by a wind that shrilled like the cries of a thousand banshees.
Mountings were torn from their places and tossed to one side like so much scrap metal. Stanchions bent as if they were made of wire. Lifeboats were slammed back and forth against the superstructure till they broke into matchwood.
The galley fires went out and there was no hot food or drink. Those who could eat without being sick afterwards contented themselves with greasy corned beef sandwiches and bits of hard cheese. Even Billy Bennett went off his food. Loyally, however, he continued to feed the little dog, which didn’t seem to notice the howling storm, until his stomach could stand it no longer and he had to rush to the nearest bucket to be sick.
Now nothing seemed immune from the onrush of that angry, boiling white water. It swept greedily into every compartment, searching for its victims. Plates sprang by the dozen, the rivets simply popping out under the tremendous pressure. There were leaks everywhere. Here and there the men, all dirty and unshaven for no one could balance long enough to carry out these functions, waited up to their ankles in freezing sea water.
The only cheerful few minutes of that terrible afternoon was when Smith ordered ‘splice the mainbrace’ and the men were given a generous issue of rum. ‘Thank God for Nelson’s blood!’ Ginger Kerrigan said, his face a peculiar green shade, and took a tentative sip at the fiery spirit. Moments later he was being sick in a pail, as the little dog sitting next to it watched him curiously, as if it couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
Thirk, who was staggering by, trying to keep upright, though he didn’t seem to be affected by sea sickness like the rest, sneered, ‘Some matelots you lot, spewing up yer rings in a bit of a wind. Now stop puking and get them fan inlets closed before the sodding sea starts coming in through them!’
Night fell. Still the storm raged. The Swordfish rose high on the white-crested water, every joint creaking, the screws threshing wildly in the air before smashing down into the deep chasms and gorges of white-streaked, boiling, wind-tom water. Throughout the night, the vessel yawed, tossed and pitched. There seemed no end to the howl of the wind, the angry roar of the sea and the groaning of metal under almost unbearable pressure. It was an eternity of agony, sickness and fear.
Down below, the sick men in their hammocks slammed into each other or against the bulkhead. A rain of condensation showered down upon them. The air inlets had been closed so that the lower deck stank of vomit and unwashed bodies. Those who came off duty lay as they were in their soaked clothes, on tables, lockers or even on the steel, vomit-strewn deck itself.
Time and time again Bully licked Billy Bennett’s ashen face as he lay moaning, his stomach churning and rumbling. Perhaps he wanted more corned beef, but now Billy Bennett was too sick even for that. Now and then he moaned, ‘God, just let me frigging well die.’ But that wasn’t to be and he would start vomiting again.
At dawn the wind from Africa started to die down. The stinging spray lost its zest. Now great, green seas passed under Swordfish instead of over her. The sudden violent rolls which sent men and equipment flying became less frequent.
As it grew lighter, Smith surveyed the upper deck anxiously. It looked a mess. Splintered wood and twisted metal were everywhere. A lifeboat was hanging at a crazy angle by one single hawser. The Swordfish was battered, weather-scarred and rust-stained as if she had been at sea for months.
‘Oh, my sainted aunt,’ Dickie Bird exclaimed as he came onto the bridge to relieve a weary, unshaven Smith, ‘what a ruddy shambles.’
Weakly, Smith nodded his head and asked, ‘Has the cook got the galley fire going again?’
‘He’s trying to now, in between retching and being sick. Not a pretty sight, Smithie.’ He forced a grin. ‘Mind you, I think most of the chaps are a bit off their food at the moment.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ Suddenly he stopped as he was about to wrench open the twisted door of the wheelhouse.
‘What’s that?’ he asked sharply, his churning stomach forgotten immediately.
‘What’s what?’ Dickie demanded.
‘There, to port.’
Hurriedly Dickie raised his glasses and concentrated on the spot that Smith had indicated. For now he, too, could see the fine smudge of smoke on the horizon to the port side of Swordfish. He focused on the object as it slid silently into the gleaming circles of calibrated glass.
‘Destroyer,’ he said, trying to get a better look at the vessel.
‘One of ours?’ Smith asked urgently, already feeling a sense of apprehension.
‘No, this one is a real bang up-to-date ship. We’ve nothing to match that sort of—’ He stopped short. ‘Christ, Smithie, it’s one of the new Pisa class!’
Smith whistled softly, ‘An Italian vessel.’
‘Exactly.’ He stared hard again before adding, ‘And she’s got a bone in her teeth. People running up and down the deck, as if action stations have just been sounded.’
‘What do you think? Are you thinking the same as I am?’
‘I’m no mind reader, old boy, but I think she’s after us. What commander would risk a ship in the weather we’ve just had unless it had an important mission?’
‘My guess is we’re the mission, Dickie.’
‘Exactly. And that’s torn it, Smithie.’
Smith frowned and wondered for a moment what to do. Their quick-firer at the bow had been boxed so that they would appear to be an ex-naval vessel transformed into a pleasure craft. It would take far too long to clear it for action. Besides what could they do with a three-inch gun against the nine four-inch guns, if he remembered rightly, which the Pisa class carried.
He made a quick decision. ‘Dickie, we’re going to have to run for it. If they catch us we’re going to suffer the same fate as the gun runners.’
‘My thinking exactly, old bean.’ Hurriedly, Dickie Bird bent and snapped into the voice tube, ‘Both ahead – full ahead!’
Smith tensed for the sudden surge of power, but he kept his gaze fixed on the Italian destroyer which was heading for them at full lick. He guessed her top speed might be just over thirty knots. Their speed was ten more, forty knots. All the same, the guns of the Italian ship might just cover the distance.
Suddenly, startlingly, the bow of Swordfish tilted up out of the water. The deck vibrated like a live thing. Hastily, Smith grabbed hold of a stanchion to steady himself. The Swordfish surged forward, as, automatically, Dickie Bird started to sound, ‘Action Stations’.
