Hammond Innes - The Trojan Horse

‘It’s fantastic,’ he said.

I laughed. I must have sounded a trifle bitter. ‘I told you you wouldn’t believe me,’ I said.

He looked straight at me for a moment, his eyes meeting and holding mine. Suddenly he said, ‘On the contrary I do believe you. The whole thing is much too fantastic not to be true. Can I have any more details?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said, suddenly remembering that the Globe was the Record’s great rival. ‘You see, I’ve been working on the matter for Fisher of the Record . I think I’ve said enough. I’ll give you a tip, though. The Record will be running this tomorrow. I’ve told you what I have because my desire for Government action to prevent this ship reaching Germany comes before my desire to get a scoop for the Record.’

‘Okay, pal. Thanks for the tip. And I’ll see that Carr hears about David Shiel.’

I watched him disappear down the gangway with a feeling that at least I was maintaining the initiative. That pleased me, for in other respects the outlook was grim enough. The crowd was beginning to drift away now that there was nothing of interest to hold them. I hesitated. If I remained on board much longer I should become conspicuous. On the other hand, once I passed out through the gates of the wharf, I should never get back to the Thirlmere unless it was with a squad of police and a search warrant. And there was David unconscious in the poop and Freya somewhere else on board. I could not just walk off the ship and leave them to their fate. It wasn’t as though I could do anything, either in Whitehall or at the Yard. I had to leave that to Fisher and Keif in any case.

It did not take me long to make up my mind. I must maintain the initiative and I decided to tackle Marburg. Looking back on it, I cannot imagine what I expected to achieve. I had not prepared my brief. I was going to face him and leave it to the inspiration of the moment to decide what I was going to say. With this intention, I climbed the iron deck ladder to the fo’c’sle. I then crossed to the port side, which seemed the easiest approach to the bridge. In doing so I passed the trapdoor leading to the hold. It was open, a small square hole in the deck plates, with barely room for a man to squeeze through. A rifle stood against the superstructure of the bridge. Presumably one of the volunteers guarding this entrance to the hold had found it necessary to go down. I hesitated, peering down it. All I could see was the top of an iron ladder. The rest was blackness.

I glanced quickly about me. No one appeared to be overlooking the fo’c’sle. Quickly I dropped to the deck and lowered my feet into the opening. A second later they found the rungs of the ladder and I had disappeared below the level of the deck. I paused for a moment, to discover whether my movements had been noticed. But there was no outcry, and I began to clamber quietly down. Somewhere below, no doubt, was the guard. As I clambered down dirty rung after dirty rung, I kept on peering below, expecting to see the light of a torch. But all was dark, and the smell of stale oil was very strong.

Suddenly a light flashed below me. Then the framework of the ladder began to shake as someone began to climb. The guard! My heart leapt to my throat. For a second I was in a panic. The man had only to glance upward to see me in silhouette against the square light of the trapdoor. If I climbed back to the deck, he was sure to see me and I remembered what had happened to David. If I faced him, the odds were about even — he probably had a revolver, but I had the advantage of being uppermost on the ladder. But even if I were able to kick him from his hold before he fired, his absence would be noticed. All these thoughts raced through my mind in an instant, and at the same moment I leant away from the ladder and thrust out my hand. There was wood there, cases by the feel of it. Ammunition cases probably.

At that thought I began to climb quietly upwards, one hand outstretched, feeling the cases. The ship was supposed to be carrying more tanks than those I had seen on the well deck of the wharf. If they were stowed in the hold on top of the ammunition … I had climbed to the height of five cases when suddenly my hand encountered a void. I felt about. There was nothing within reach. I had been right. The hold was not stowed to the deck plates with ammunition boxes. I turned, put my hands on the last of the cases and drew my feet from the ladder.

A second later the guard climbed past where I lay on top of the cases. Then the trapdoor closed with a clang and I was in complete darkness. I felt about me with my hands. The cases presented a level surface running back from the ladder. I rose to my feet, and though I had moved carefully, I nearly brained myself on a piece of jutting metal. For a moment I crouched on my knees, nursing my head in agony. Then I pulled out a small torch I had borrowed from Fisher.

No wonder I had hurt my head. I had struck it on the caterpillar tractors of a large tank. In the pale light of the torch the monstrous machine reared above me to the deckplates. Next to it was another, and beyond that I made out a third. I crawled between them and then rose to my feet. The clumsy-looking monsters were ranged five abreast across the hold and attached by steel hawsers to girders which ran below the deck plates. There were ten of them altogether, and behind them were Spitfires with their wings stacked against the side of the hold.

Freya had been brought aboard in a tank. She might have been left in it. It was the safest place to hide a prisoner. I remembered my own experience of being trussed up in a steel container and made haste to locate her. It took me some time to visit each one, tapping against its steel plates and calling out her name.

When I had contacted every one without result, I came to the conclusion that either she was not there, or else she was bound and gagged so firmly that she could not even tap in reply. Perhaps she was unconscious. At the thought I felt a sudden surge of anger through my veins — not at Marburg, but at Sedel. The man was a fiend, and I could well believe the pleasure it would give him to hurt a woman.

I realised then that if Freya were in one of those tanks, the only way I could discover her was by getting into each one. That was a lengthy job, and before starting on it, I decided to go down the ladder and see what was at the bottom of it. The guard must have had some reason for going down there. As I swung myself on to the ladder, there was a sudden tremendous noise overhead. It grew louder until it was pounding on the deck plates above my head. It continued for a moment and then ceased. It was some moments before I realised what it was. They were bringing tanks from the wharf on board.

I began to descend the ladder just as the next one came on board. The ladder was set in a kind of recess in the bulkhead, so that with the munition cases flush with the bulkhead proper, it descended what was virtually a small square well. At the bottom I found a massive steel door. It required all my strength to slide this back. When at length I got through, I found myself facing more munition cases. Presumably this was No. I hold. There was no ladder here, but a rope hung down the wall of cases that faced me. I glanced up. The cases were stacked to within little more than a foot of the deck plates.

I went back into the main hold and, after closing the bulkhead door, climbed back up the ladder. I felt certain there was no hold aft. The space beyond the after bulkhead would be taken up by the engine-room. There was only one thing to do. I should have to search each of those tanks, and the planes, if necessary.

By the time I had finished examining those tanks the Thirlmere was under way. It was past eight now and I was hungry, dirty and dispirited. I had found no trace of Freya. Presumably she had been removed to another hiding place. It had not been easy to make the search thorough, for in some cases the hatches were difficult to open and some were tucked under steel girders so that I had scarcely been able to squeeze myself inside. However, I had managed to search thoroughly every tank, and now I sat on the back of one nearest the ladder and wondered what the next move was.