John Gardner - Seafire

Easing himself down onto the companionway, he traversed right to the stern of the boat, then back, moving forward through the control room again, and so for'ard toward the bows. He brushed the small curtained-off sections that served as crew and officer mess decks, and on toward the torpedo tubes in the bow, noting as he went that the Russians – or its present owner – had provided an escape trunk almost identical to the one aft.

There were red tags wired to the wheels of the torpedo tubes with the words "Tube Full. Loaded" scrawled on them. Behind, to both port and starboard, were the racks that would normally hold other torpedoes. They were empty, and he remembered Tarn aboard Mare Nostrum saying they had only two torpedoes with which to do the job.

Bond began to take out the deadly little jewels of plastique from the pouches on his belt. He placed them in a neat row and removed the small screwdriver with which he would arm the fuses. Holding his flashlight under his chin, he picked up each device in turn and worked with the screwdriver until all five fuses were set for nineteen-fifty – ten minutes to eight on the following evening. He left the final arming, the moving of a small button in the center of each dial, until last, then moved to the port torpedo tube, spinning the wheel that allowed the breech door to swing back.

Years ago he had spent some time being spirited onto the shore of another country in an old British submarine, and recalled the hours spent waiting. Some of that time had been passed with an old submariner who had showed him the comparatively simple mechanism they had used on these World War II boats. In memory, the German U-boat was not much different. A lever on one side of the tube lifted a curved metal stretcher on which the torpedo could be slid into, or out of, the tube. The mechanism here was very similar, and had been well oiled and maintained. The long and deadly fish came sliding back on the stretcher until the tube was empty.

Carefully, he took the first of the plastique devices and unwrapped the actual explosive, which he molded, like a big lump of plasticine, as far forward as he could on the top side of the torpedo. The second bomb he stuck firmly around the center of the weapon; then he reversed the steps with the levers and stretcher, feeling an enormous pleasure as the torpedo went back into its tube and he turned the wheel, which would make the whole thing watertight.

Then he went through the whole business again on the starboard side. In all, the process took him the best part of two hours, and there was one plastique bomb left. He had kept this for another vulnerable spot, and began to make his way aft again, knowing that at ten minutes to eight on the following evening the plastique would explode, probably also igniting the two torpedoes. This alone, almost certainly, would blow off the entire bow section of the boat.

He reached the far end of the sub and searched for the main pipe, which carried diesel fuel to the engines when the boat was on the surface. While submerged the craft ran wholly on the huge batteries, which had to be recharged by running on the surface under me diesel. But submerged or not, there was always fuel in the pipeline, and he molded the last bomb around the pipe so that it was completely hidden from view – high up and out of sight among the other pipes and cables that traversed almost the entire length of the boat. When the time came, the bow would be blown away and, with any luck, a secondary explosion would ignite the diesel fuel and rip through the rest of the old craft.

Bond sighed with some relief as he finished the job, and making certain he had left no traces of his visit, he began to move forward. He had gone halfway toward the control room when he stopped, stock-still, listening. There was a clanking sound from above him and then the unmistakable noise of men climbing the ladder up the outside of the conning tower. He heard the first one come down inside the control room and a broad Scottish accent shouting, "Wall, there'll be nay turnin' back now, lads, so let's be having you down here."

He was trapped inside the old U-boat.

For a second he seemed to be frozen to the deck below his feet. He was so close to the control room that he could smell the men coming down through the tower. Then he moved, softly backing up until he stood just under the aft escape trunk. As the voices became louder, he swung himself up into the hatch close to the trunk, pressing his body into the small space that would hide him from the men moving about below.

Something crackled from just beneath him and the Scottish voice came clear through the PA system. "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there! All hands close up for leaving harbor. All watertight doors closed." The captain, he knew from the mode of address, must be a former member of the Royal Navy. His blood boiled with anger at the thought of an officer of his own former service being in charge of Tarn's submarine, bent on causing death, destruction, and a possible ecological disaster the like of which the world had never yet seen. Bond was truly between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

He was crammed into a fetal position within the hatch and moved an arm to get a glimpse of his wristwatch. It was almost two-thirty in the morning. Had he really been that long in setting the plastique explosives? Well, he certainly had not hurried. Now the thought of being confined to this tiny space for at the least seventeen hours was distinctly unappealing. Why were they leaving at this time, in the dead of night? He brushed the question aside, for the answer was obvious.

The submarine would have to work its way quietly around the island from the Caribbean to the Atlantic side, then maneuver itself into position in order to catch Golden Bough as she came past the promontory on which El Morro stood, and cripple the supertanker just within the harbor basin. They dared not allow the submarine to be seen from the mainland cruising quietly along the coast, which meant that as soon as the sun began to rise it would be necessary to dive and continue on the journey submerged.

What about radar detection? It was unlikely, unless the search was still active for a submarine, that the signature of this relatively small boat would show as anything more than a small blip, which could be read as a school of large fish.

Someone hurried past, below him, feet thumping on the deck, and for a second his hand moved toward the pistol on his belt in case the crew member was there to check the tube of the escape trunk above him to make certain the locking wheel was tight and closed up.

The footsteps passed directly below him, bent on some job aft. He relaxed again as he felt a quivering in the metal around and below him. The diesel engines were running, and he caught a faint whiff of air being drawn into the hull. Then: "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there! Engines slow ahead. Cast off for'ard. Cast off aft."

Then he heard another voice, and his stomach turned over. "This is good. Very exciting," the voice said in slow and careful German. Kurt Rollen, the retarded partner of Saal, Saal u. Rollen, was aboard.

He flinched, as the voice seemed to come from very close to him and he heard the thud of feet above him: presumably the two crew members up on the rounded exterior, releasing the boat from its restraining lines.

Seconds later there was movement. A wallowing motion as the submarine edged slowly forward out into the sea, and the distinct tremor that passed through the metal hull, so that the entire boat seemed alive.

Again the voice of the captain. "D'ye hear there! D'ye hear there, all hands at dive stations, close up main hatch."

He thought he could hear the scramble of the two men who had been topside as they came down into the control room, and the squeal of the wheel lock that would seal everyone within the metal coffin, for it would be the final casket for the entire crew when the clock ticked around to seven-fifty that night.