Jack Higgins: Wrath of the Lion

the graticules misted over, momentarily obscured by a curtain of green water, but as the tip of the periscope broke through to the surface the small untidy freighter jumped into focus with astonishing clarity. Lieutenant Fenelon gripped the handles of the eyepiece and his breath escaped in a long sigh.

Beside him, Jacaud said, “The Kontoro!”

Fenelon nodded. “Not more than five hundred yards away.”

Jacaud dropped his cigarette and ground it into the deck with his heel. “Let me see.”

Fenelon stood back, conscious of the hollowness at the base of his stomach. He was twenty-six years of age and had never seen action, never known what war was like except through the eyes of other men. But this – this was a new sensation. He felt strangely dizzy and passed a hand across his eyes as he waited.

Jacaud grunted and turned. He was a big, dangerous-looking man badly in need of a shave, a jagged scar bisecting his right cheek.

“Nice of them to be on time.1

Fenelon took another look. The Kontoro moved slowly to the right across the little black lines etched on the glass of the periscope and his throat went dry. He was already beginning to taste a little of that special excitement that takes possession of the hunter when his quarry is in plain sight.

“One torpedo,” he said softly. “That’s all it would take.”

Jacaud was watching him, a strange, sardonic smile on his face. “What would be the point? No one would ever know.”

“I suppose not.” Fenelon called the control room from his voice-pipe. “Steer one-oh-five and prepare to surface.”

He whipped the periscope down, the hiss it made as it slid into its well mingling with the clamour of the alarm klaxon. As he turned, brushing sweat from his eyes, Jacaud took a Liiger from his pocket. He removed the clip, checked it with the rapidity of the expert and slammed it back into the butt with a click that somehow carried with it a harsh finality.

He lit another cigarette. When he looked up he was no longer smiling.

In the wheelhouse of the Kontoro Janvier, the first officer, yawned as he bent over the chart. He made a quick calculation and threw down his pencil. By dead reckoning they were forty miles west of Ushant and the weather forecast wasn’t good. Winds of gale force reported imminent in sea areas Rockall, Shannon, Sole and Finisterre.

For the moment there was only an unnatural calm, the sea lifting in a great oily swell. Janvier was tired, his eyes gritty from lack of sleep. A native of Provence, he had never managed to get used to the cold of these northern seas and he shivered with distaste as he gazed out into the grey dawn.

Behind him the door to the companionway clicked open and the steward entered holding a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. He gave one to Janvier and the other to the helmsman, taking his place at the wheel for a few moments while the man drank.

Janvier opened the door and walked out on to the bridge. He stood at the rail drinking his coffee and breathing deeply of the cold morning air, feeling considerably more cheerful. Once across Biscay there was the long run south to look forward to Maderia, then the Cape and sun all the way.

He finished his coffee, emptied the dregs over the side and started to turn.

A hundred yards to starboard there was a sudden surge in the oily water. It boiled in a white froth and a submarine broke through to the surface, strange and alien like some primeval creature in the dawn of time.

Janvier stood at the rail, trapped by surprise. As he watched, the conning-tower hatch opened and a young officer in peaked cap appeared, followed by a sailor who immediately hoisted a small ensign. A sudden gust of wind lifted it stiffly, the red, white and blue of the tricolour standing out vividly against the grey clouds.

The steward emerged from the wheelhouse and stood at the rail. “What do you make of her, sir?”

Janvier shrugged. “God knows. Better get the captain.”

A third sailor appeared in the conning tower, a signaling lamp in his hands. The submarine moved in closer, narrowing the gap, and the lamp started to wink rapidly.

A reserve naval officer, Janvier had no difficulty in reading the signal for himself. When he had deciphered it he stood at the rail frowning for a moment, then went into the wheelhouse and unhooked the signal-lamp.

As he moved back to the rail, the light flickered again from the conning tower, repeating her request. As Janvier replied with the “Message received” signal, the captain came up the ladder from the well-deck, the quartermaster close behind.

Henri Duclos was nearly fifty, and after thirty years at sea, five of them as a corvette captain with the Free French Navy, he found it difficult to be surprised by anything.

“What’s all this?” he demanded.

“They’ve made the same signal twice,” Janvier told him.

“ "Heave to. I wish to come aboard." “

“What have you replied?”

“Message received.”

Duclos went into the wheelhouse and came back with a pair of binoculars. He examined the submarine for a moment and grunted. “She’s French all right. I can see the uniforms. Small for a sub, though.” He handed the binoculars to the quartermaster. “What do you make of her?”

The old man took his time and then nodded. “L’Alouette. I saw her in Oran last year when the fleet was exercising. An ex-U-boat. Experimental job the Germans were working on at the end of the war. One of those the navy took over.”

“So now we know who she is,” Duclos said. “The point is what in the hell does she want with us?” He turned to Janvier. “Ask her to be more explicit.”

There was a pause while the lamps flickered again and Janvier turned blankly. “She says: "Imperative I board you. Matter of national importance. Please observe radio silence."

The lamp on the conning tower of the submarine was still. “What shall I reply, sir?” Janvier said.

Duclos raised the binoculars to his eyes for a moment then took them down. “What can you reply? If it’s important enough for them to send a blasted sub after us, then it’s important. Signal: "Come aboard."“ He grimaced at the quartermaster. “I was looking forward to all that sun. My rheumatism’s been killing me lately. Let’s hope we don’t have to go into Brest.”

The quartermaster shrugged. “Stranger things are happening in the Republic these days.”

“Which republic?” Duclos demanded sardonically. “Stand to all hands and get a ladder over the side.”

The quartermaster moved away and Janvier lowered the lamp. “They thank us for our co-operation.”

“Do they, now?” Duclos observed. “Let’s hope they aren’t wasting our time. Stop all engines.”

Janvier moved into the wheelhouse and Duclos took out his pipe and filled it from a worn leather pouch, watching the submarine as he did so. The forward hatch was opened and a large yellow dinghy hauled out and inflated. As the freighter started to slow, the two vessels drifted together until finally the gap had narrowed to no more than twenty or thirty yards.

The submarine commander climbed down the ladder from the conning tower and paused at the bottom, watching the half-dozen sailors working on the dinghy. He was slim and rather boyish in his reefer jacket and rubber boots, and the peaked cap was tilted rakishly to one side. He glanced up at Duclos, smiled and waved, then walked along the hull and stepped down into the dinghy.

He was followed by half a dozen sailors, most of whom carried sub-machine-guns slung across their backs. Four of them paddled the boat across the narrow strip of water towards the ladder that had been dropped over the side of the Kontoro. Two sailors, still standing by the forward hatch of the submarine, carefully paid out a connecting line.