Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Antarctica

Churchill was there to meet me. He had grown more stout and portly since our last meeting, and his belly strained rather too tightly against his waistcoat. Compared to his lads around us, he looked out of place on the dock, his walking cane, heavy silver fob chain, tall hat and tails being much too grand, and more suited to the rarified atmosphere of the House.

Given the abrupt nature of my summoning, I half-expected him to be brusque and off-hand. But he was all ‘hale fellow, well met’ and made a show of telling his lads that I was an expert, consultant I believe is the word he used, and that I was to be given access to the whole site; nothing was to be kept from me. I still had no idea what was kept in the big shed at this point, but at least I knew now that I had been brought for a reason, for Churchill took my arm and suddenly became quite conspiratorial.

“It’s those bally Huns. They’re at it again,” he said as he led me toward the large boat shed and to a small door to the rear of the main building. “They’re readying for war, I can feel it in my water. And it’s my job now to do what I can to stop them mastering the seas. It’s our best defense, always has been. But it’s also our weakest point, for there are far too many miles of coastline all the way up the North Sea that are undefended and vulnerable to a sneak attack. We must show that we are prepared for any eventuality. Britannia must rule the waves again, and we must take charge of the oceans now, before it’s too late. Don’t you agree?”

It had sounded more in the nature of a speech than conversation, so I thought it best to be circumspect and muttered my agreement, to which he clapped me on the shoulder. It appeared we were to be friends, for a while at least.

We came to a halt outside the small door and he turned to me again.

“Now, Carnacki, my good man, I must ask for your complete discretion on this matter. What you are about to see is the best-kept secret in the country at the moment, and we must ensure it remains that way. Apart from my chaps on guard here, there’s only ten people know of it. And you are the tenth. The PM knows, but not the cabinet, and not even the King has been told. I know you are a man of your word, so I can trust you to keep this under your hat.”

I nodded in reply, but didn’t get time to get a word in edgeways as he continued.

“And there are to be no Friday night stories told around the fire over a smoke and a brandy; not with this one. It’s too bally sensitive to be bandied about, even between close friends and confidantes. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” I replied, although I was feeling increasingly unsure as to what I was letting myself in for. Churchill nodded to the guard beside the door, who opened it to allow us into the cathedral that was the boat shed and reveal Churchill’s big secret.

Of all the things I had considered, of all the things I had expected to see, I think a German U-Boat might well have been near the bottom of the list.

And yet there it was, like a great russet-colored whale beached up on timbers that held it off the floor and ran along its whole length. The bulk of it almost filled the old shed from the huge riverside doors to the rear where we stood. I could only look at it in awe, and wonder how it had got here, to the East London docks. Churchill answered my question before I asked it.

“We think she’s a prototype for a new class they’re developing over there; there’s been rumors of such a thing for a year or so now, and it looks like they were right. We caught this one snooping around in the North Sea, up in Doggerland at the shallowest point. Well, we didn’t actually catch her. The engineers who’ve been over her bow to stern tell me that she had some kind of system failure and gave up the ghost all on her own. She was floating on the surface when we got to her, and not a man of the crew left alive inside either. The poor blighters all died of suffocation, or so the doctors assure me.”

He paused, and laughed as if he had made a joke.

“Gave up the ghost. That’s rather apt, I must remember that one.”

He didn’t look inclined to explain that point, so I let it lie and went on to the matter that most concerned me.

“So you have a German submarine. That’s probably good for you and the Admiralty,” I replied. “But I fail to see why you need my particular brand of expertise, or where I am being asked to apply it.”

Churchill laughed again, a booming thing that echoed high in the rafters of the shed.

“That is why you would never make a politician or indeed an Admiral, Carnacki. You have failed to see our tactical advantage here, even when it’s right in front of your nose.”

“I’m still not with you,” I replied.

Churchill waved at the length of the submarine in reply.

“It felt like a godsend, when it turned up like that, almost on our doorstep,” he said. “A free, no strings attached, chance to examine our largest adversary’s latest vessel. But when I looked at it, I started to wonder. It was a simple question at first, but the implications of it kept making me come back to it again and again.

“What if we gave them it back? What if we gave them it back with something on board that would make them think twice about ever sending something our way again?”

I was starting to see some daylight, and I was wishing that I didn’t.

“You want me to mock up some kind of propaganda scene inside the submarine, is that what this is about? I am to make it look like something from beyond killed the crew and that it has been taken over by a spectral presence? Parlor tricks and scare tactics, in other words.”

“You’ve nearly got it, old man,” Churchill said, and suddenly he looked completely serious. “But I do not, under any circumstances, want a mere mock-up. There must be no ‘parlor tricks’ that can be easily exposed as such. I need the real thing. I want this U-boat infested with a particularly vicious spook. I want it sent back to them, and I want to put the fear of God into the bally Hun so that they will never trouble us again.”

It took a few seconds for all of that to sink in. I did not know whether to be simply confused, or completely appalled. In the end, I pleaded unfit for the task at hand.

“You’ve seen my methods first-hand, Churchill,” I said. “You know my defenses are just that; they are only defensive. I wouldn’t know to go about calling up a spook, never mind ensuring you got a nasty, vicious one.”

He didn’t reply at first; he looked me straight in the eye for the longest time before speaking in a measured voice.

“Come, now. That is not strictly true, is it, Carnacki?” he said finally. “I know for a fact you have a wide variety of books on the shelves in your library dealing with such matters. There must be something in those tomes that is of practical use?”

I did not go into how he might know what I had in my private library. Just as he had seen my methods first-hand, so I had seen his. He had a ruthless streak in him I found hard to like, and a blatant disregard for any piddling matters such as legality and morality if they did not suit his purposes. He did, however, have the strongest sense of duty to King and Country of any chap I have ever met, and I could not help but be impressed with the zeal with which he approached the task.

But that in itself was not enough to get a job done that I considered to be, frankly, impossible. I tried to tell him so in words he might understand.