Hammond Innes - The Trojan Horse

At length we were safe among the tanks. I think she fainted with the reaction then. She lay very still for a while, whilst I chafed her limbs. After some time she stirred and sat up. I felt her hand on mine. ‘It really is you, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t dream that?’

‘You thought I was dead?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was all over the papers on … What’s today?’

I glanced at my watch. ‘We’re ten minutes into Monday,’ I said.

‘And on the Thirlmere headed for Germany?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We should reach Norwegian territorial waters about ten in the morning.’

‘Have they got the boat on board?’

‘Yes. And your father is on board, too.’

‘I know. That man Sedel told me before you let me out. Franzie thought he was being so clever, and they knew all the time. Sedel said they also had David.’

‘I’m afraid so,’ I said. And then added, ‘He came on board quite openly for the dedication ceremony as a cameraman. Your father had told him they had brought you on board in a tank and he came to rescue you.’

‘I know.’ She spoke dispiritedly. ‘I was the bait. Sedel told me that. How well their scheme has worked — Franzie, David, and you, too! Why did you come on board?’

‘I was determined to stop the engine from getting out of the country somehow,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I’m glad it was not on account of me.’

‘I did not know you were on board until I met David,’ I explained. Then I told her how I had escaped from the vaults of Marburgs and of my flight through the sewers. ‘You see,’ I finished, ‘I just had to square up accounts somehow.’

She pressed my hand and in the darkness I sensed that she was smiling. ‘The obstinate Scot in you, Andrew.’ And she gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Franzie insists that your obstinacy is the key to your whole character.’

I was glad of the darkness. The blood had rushed to my cheeks at her use of my Christian name, and I should have hated her to notice it. ‘How did you fall into their clutches?’ I asked.

Apparently she had picked up an ‘18’ bus and got out at Guildford Street. They had been waiting for her outside the digs. There had been a black saloon car at the kerb and a uniformed chauffeur had come up to her just as she was getting out her key. He was in Bart’s livery. Would she come at once to the hospital? Mr Kilmartin had been brought there and was asking for her. He had been badly cut up in a car smash. She had hesitated. It was the old dodge and she was suspicious. Then he played his trump card. He showed her the evening paper. He had relied on her not reading the story through and discovering where the accident was supposed to have taken place. When she pointed out that I was supposed to be dead, he told her that the journalists were a little premature, that was all. Then she had got into the car. And of course they had to stop and pick up a famous surgeon from his home in Gray’s Inn. Chloroform had done the rest. She did not know anything about being brought on board in a tank. The first thing she had remembered was the cramped feeling of that case.

After telling me this, she asked whether anyone had been able to communicate with the authorities. I told her how far I had got. When I had finished, she said, ‘But you are not hopeful?’

‘Frankly, no,’ I said. ‘But we can’t be sure.’

‘Then if we are going to try anything on our own, we had best wait until we reach Norwegian territorial waters?’

‘If we can,’ I agreed. ‘But don’t forget, even supposing they are prepared to let you have a quiet night, they will be down in the morning.’

‘How silly of me — of course.’ She was on the point of putting another question when she stopped. There was a sudden empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I did not need the rush of cold air to tell me what the sound was that had stopped Freya. The trapdoor had been thrown back.

Then there was a soft thud as it closed again and an instant later a torch was switched on. Freya and I had slid behind the nearest tank. Peering round its gun turret, I saw that two men were descending the ladder. I did not know what to do. Naturally my first thought was that it was Sedel and his companion returning to question Freya about something. And once they discovered that she was no longer there, the hunt would be up. We had no weapons. The position was hopeless.

But the men, instead of climbing to the bottom of the ladder, dropped off it on to the cases. My heart was in my mouth as I thrust Freya farther into the shadow of the tank. For they were coming straight towards us.

Then the beam of the torch swung upward and I saw the face of the second man. It was in profile as the first one, who was much shorter, indicated the tank behind which we were hiding. ‘You see, they have two-pounders like the ones on deck,’ said the little man. ‘We can test down here.’

In the instant that I had recognised the big man to whom the words were addressed, Freya had let go of my hand and rushed forward. ‘Franzie!’ she cried, and flung herself into the arms of the smaller of the two men.

‘Quite a gathering of the clans,’ I said, as I stepped forward. The torch was shone on my face. Then Schmidt put Freya to one side and took my hand. ‘It’s you, Kilmartin, is it?’ he said, and I had a feeling he was going to embrace me. But he restrained himself and said quietly, ‘I was so afraid they had got you.’

‘Andrew has been chased through the sewers,’ Freya explained in a rush of words. ‘Then he got on board as a pressman and has just rescued me from an empty munition case in which they’d imprisoned me. All wonderfully melodramatic. But how did you get down here? Only a little while ago Sedel told me that he knew you were on board.’

Schmidt took off his glasses and polished them vigorously. His big eyes were brilliant in the torchlight. ‘There are certain advantages in being employed in the galley. The volunteers mess together. They are all sound asleep now. So, I fancy, are Sedel and his chief of staff. I took them coffee after they had returned from visiting Freya.’

‘He’s an absolute wizard,’ David said. ‘Drugged the lot of them. Then he came and let me out of the chain locker in which they’d imprisoned me. Now we take control of the ship.’

‘You go too fast, Mr Shiel,’ put in Schmidt. ‘We can only make our preparations to take over the ship. We can go to our action stations, but we cannot go into action until we have dropped our escort.’

‘But with those pseudo-volunteers all unconscious it would be so easy,’ David insisted. ‘Just tie them up, take their guns and have the ship turned back.’

‘You seem to have forgotten our escort,’ Schmidt said quietly. ‘My dear Mr Shiel, we cannot show our hands until they have shown theirs. That is, of course, unless Mr Kilmartin can assure me that the British Government is by now convinced that this ship is bound for Germany.’ He turned to me. ‘You have made attempts to convince the authorities, yes?’

I nodded. ‘Frankly, I am not very hopeful,’ I said.

He put his glasses on again. ‘Then my plan is best,’ he said. ‘We must give them the rope necessary to hang themselves. They will wake up in the morning to find everything just as it was the night before, except that myself and the two prisoners will have disappeared. I doubt whether they will have time to make a thorough search of the ship, for it will be getting late by then. They will say good-bye to their escort and, when she has passed out of sight, they will go through with their plan to take control of the ship. The course will be set for Germany.’

‘And where are we?’ asked Freya.

‘Inside one of the tanks on the deck. Here’ — he waved his hand round the hold — ‘we have ammunition of several kinds. Ammunition for the machine-guns. Ammunition for these two-pounders. We take a stock of ammunition up to our tank and then we have command of the ship.’ He looked at me. ‘You agree?’ he asked.