A Bridge Of Magpies (24 page)

'Thank God V

Poor love.'

I got a grip on myself.

'Was it bad?'

'Not really. They called it an interview. In the chart-room. The same routine as before. Drinks. The iron fist in the velvet glove. More iron this time.'

All my muscles felt
as
though they'd been stretched and let go and were trying to find their way back to normal. I sat down. Jutta glanced inquiringly at the guard.

'His pal didn't react to my fo'c'sle language. I'll try some on him and see if he understands.'

I gave him a volley–brief because of Jutta–but he simply stared owlishly at me.

'Fine. Now tell me what happened.'

'First-of course, they pressed me about how I came to know so much about
U-160.
I said I'd been researching on behalf of
a
writer who was doing a book on U-boats which had disappeared without trace during the war.'

'Did they fall for that?'

'To begin with. Emmermann was persuaded when J came up with the answer to a question of his regarding the difference between German and British operating methods: a U-boat captain never stood at the periscope like his British counterpart but sat on a kind of saddle affair. I lost ground, though, when they demanded to know what I was doing alone in a place like Possession. How'd I got hare? Where was my author? I said he'd been delayed through illness in Britain but would be along shortly. I made up a name and address, They were even more insistent about you:

'Not the headman type?'

162

'Too right. I said you were an alcoholic who'd been kicked out of the Navy and were in the process of rehabilitating yourself.'

'It could have been true once.'

'That got by - just.'

'Not a hint about the tape?'

'No. They found nothing to implicate us, either at the bunkhouse or on board
Ichabo:

'Good. Our prospects grow brighter every minute? 'Make no mistake-Struan, Emmermann is extremely clued

up. He fumbles on the details of
U-160's action
but he has the general outline spot-on.'

'What about that section of plating they recovered?'
'
Gousblom's. Hence
the interview. They're pulling out from this area tomorrow and starting a fresh search in the channel.'

Emmermann's sold on the channel?' I asked.

'Absolutely.'

'But you're not.'

'No, Struan, never have been. I can't back up my hunch: I'

m just not.'

'The tape would be worth its weight in gold to them.' '

Every question seemed like a trap. It was nerve racking. But I'll keep stringing them along!

Next morning, however, when Kenryo appeared, grimfaced-at the cell doors I thought she'd fallen into their trap. Until he explained.

'These cells are bugged, of course. We recorded your confidential chat last night. We deliberately put a man on guard who didn't understand English in the hope that you'd be lulled into feeling safe and open up. You did.'

He didn't wait for us to try and talk our way out of it. The tape-where is it?'

Neither of us replied. Then he tossed through the bars of my cell a garment he'd been carrying. It was made of leather like a pair of Tyrolean pants with braces.

'Put that on. Over your trousers. Take off your shirt.'

That was no hardship because it
was warm
already. All night the searing wind off the land had grown progressively stronger.

I was mystified and didn't carry out Kenryo's order. He barked at one of his plug-uglies and snapped at me, 'Put
163

'em on or he'll do it for you. Take
your
choice.'

I felt ridiculous standing there in the peasant pants when I'

d done.

He said, 'You'll do. The crew will love this!

He addressed Jutta. 'The men need entertainment once in a while. They get bored with shipboard life. You'll be made to watch. You can stop the proceedings any time by telling us where you've hidden the tape and everything you know about the
U-160.'

I gave her a reassuring glance because I thought I
was
being forced into one of their staves matches. I rather hoped so. I wanted to have Kenryo on the receiving end. But the purpose of the fancy pants was lost on me.

I found out soon enough, however, when we were marched out on deck. It was murky with fog and desert grit. The crew were gathered round the foremast. They'd lowered its heavy wooden boom parallel to the deck and a couple of feet above it. Three of them grabbed me at a word from Kenryo and frog-marched me to the spar. They compelled me to sit astride it and lashed my ankles underneath with rope. Then they fixed the legs of my pants to the boom with big flatheaded nails. My arms and hands were left free but I was immobilized from the waist downwards.

Kenryo supervised. Jutta was far back under guard and in the dimness I couldn't make out her face clearly. Emmer-m ann stood beneath the bridge overhang with Captain Mild. Mild had a pistol on his belt. His immobility was so marked that it made him stand out amongst the comings and goings on the deck. While I was being nailed down the crew made a ring, chattering and laughing.

When they'd finished the three who'd been doing the job broke away suddenly as if they were afraid I'd take a swipe at them.

Then there was a built of cheering from the crew. A tough emerged on deck and started walking towards me. He was clad only in the same Tyrolean pants as myself and slripped to the waist. The only difference between us was that he carried a ten-inch knife.

He sat himself down on the spar facing me. His eyes were dark and beady and his stare
as
impersonal
as an
abattoir hand's at an ox. He had a bruise on his forehead –Kenryo's staves opponent.

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He put his knees to louch mine and they nailed down his pants.

'If you know how to fight with a
knife
it'll provide better sport,' said Kenryo. 'Otherwise you'll get carved up. The girl can save you, remember.'

I then saw that the crew were laying bets – on me. Jf there'd been a bookie he'd have rated me as the rankest outsider that ever ran in the
Sang A
stakes.

`You bastard!' I said to Kenryo. `Do you expect me to fight with my bare hands?'

He signalled a crewman who came up with what appeared to be two long fish gutting knives.

'Take your choice. The moment you do, the game's on? The purpose of the pants was clear. Winner or loser, you
had
to fight I

I flicked a glance at my opponent before I took a weapon, trying to sum him up. It's difficult to trigger hate in a minute or two for someone you've never seen before. But his knees were touching mine; he was ready to kill me. Make it a grudge fight, I told myself; that's Kenryo sitting there, nol a nameless thug. Go for Kenryo and that will be it. Right for me, right for Jutta. He did in point of fact resemble Kenryo –

the same tough-as-teak, hairless, barrel chest and gorilla arms. His chest was dark with sweat and the brassy, dead-fag smell of his breath was in my face.

I reached out for a knife.

He switched his
knife
from his left hand to his right. There was dead silence.

I'd never fought with a knife. My one experience was once seeing two drunken
gamats tear
into one another in a street brawl. If I
was
to achieve anything it would have to be by surprise tactics.

I snatched the knife and lunged at his stomach.

My wrist felt as if I'd bashed a stone wall.

My knife was held fast by its pommel in an iron grip. It's tip was an inch or two from the man's navel.

The crowd roared.

He shoved my arm clear by brute force, deftly flicked his weapon clear and jabbed me in the shoulder above the heart.

It didn't hurt much but it brought a gush of blood. In reply I side-swiped wildly at him; he blocked me with165 out trouble. The crowd catcalled and booed me. Above their noise I heard an order from Kenryo.

My man acknowledged it with a slight nod and the next thing I had a gash the full width of my chest. He was simply playing with me, chopping me up expertly.

The crowd yelled at me to go for him. I started a thrust with my right hand and then switched the weapon to my left in mid-stroke. He hadn't expected that. It was meant for his throat and I nearly made
it.
There was so much impetus behind the blow that I jack-knifed forward and our jaws cracked together. He held off my knife-hand with his elbow crooked at shoulder level. J hadn't the strength to ram home the tip and we hung together with our muscles cracking while the crew screamed and stamped.

He pushed me clear and we were back to square one, panting in each other's face and pouring sweat. Perhaps his narrow escape or my crack on his jaw roughed up his temper, whatever it was, he'd give up playing now. The crowd sensed it. I thought I heard Jutta's voice in the background but I couldn't be
sure.

He took the initiative for the next move-but was fool enough to telegraph it by a downward glance at his knife, which then thrust like lightning at my heart. Even a duffer like me could see it coming. I countered by striking hard against the back of his blade.

My knife stuck there,

Then he grinned.

He'd bluffed me with his stroke into doing
just
what I had done because the back of his knife was overlaid with a soft bronze ridge and my weapon
was
snagged fast in it. I was wide open to the
coup de grace.

All at once his face went slack and he gave
a
soft little noise like a burp and his head fell forward against my chest. A knife stuck out up to its hilt between his shoulder-blades. Kaptein Denny stood on
Sang A's rail. He
had a pistol in his hand.

Watch out!' I yelled. 'There by Jutta!

But he'd already spotted the guards and their automatics and he'd fired before my words reached him. One of them fell dead and the other dropped his gun.
Its
clatter in the frozen
silence was as
loud
as a grenade
burst. Kaptein Denny shouted something at the mob in a language 166

J
didn't understand. They froze–with surprise, and fear too,
judging
by their faces.

'Miss Jutta! Here! Quick!'

She went to him and when she was close enough to be safe under his pistol he jumped off the rail and made for me. His movements had the same sort of deadly grace as I
imagine a
leopard has,
going in
for a kill. He used the body of my opponent for cover, keeping the pistol on the crew, and jerked him off me with a swift pull at his hair. He kneed the knlfe
free
out of his back and slashed my pants loose. My ankles were still hobbled, though.

'Use your knife–get free!'

I
went for the rope.

Kaptein Denny went forward
a
couple of paces and faced Captain Mild. He placed his feet wide and deliberately on the planking as if he feared he would slip. His
gun
came up in a slow stilted motion to full stretch–a
curious
chesthigh way of
aiming –untll
it pointed at
Mik i's head.
In his other band was his knife, all bloody. If Mild had gone for the pistol in his belt he would have been a dead man. From that moment there was no one else on deck that mattered but those two. An invisible beam might have
been
stabbing between them, holding them locked together. Miki's earlier immobility was there still, accentuated by the mortal danger he
was in;
it reached right up into the inert face and sinister hooded eyes. They were fixed on Kaptein Denny, held in the trance of some association which lay between them. Kaptein Denny was almost as still as he, poised in that deadly trigger-man stance. Kenryo was to one side but Kaptein Denny didn't
seem
to be worrying about him. I was.
I
slashed myself free. No one paid any attention; all of them were transfixed at the silent exchange going on between Kaptein Denny and Mild. Any moment they'd all wake up and overwhelm us by sheer
weight
of numbers and fire-power. It couldn't last.

Jt didn't.

I moved, Kenryo moved, Jutta moved.

I to grab the dead guard's sub-machine-gun. Jutta to me. Kenryo at Denny.

Denny's concentration on Mild hadn't blunted a sixth sense of awareness of peril. Kenryo caught him only half off guard. But
the
shock attack knocked his pistol
spinning.
I
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went after it. Kaptein Denny was off balance so he didn't get in his knife thrust at Kenryo. But although the blade missed-the hilt of the weapon crashed him against Kenryo's jaw and he cartwheeled over and, still carried forward by his rush, crashed to the planks.

Todome!'
yelled Kaptein Denny.
'Todome!'
You didn't have to guess that the words meant the big chop-from the pole-axed
figure
jerking on the deck. `

Struan!' screamed Jutta. 'By the ladder!'

One of her guards–the man who had escaped unscathed–had retrieved his automatic. I had the pistol now. Kaptein Denny shouted, Watch the pull!'

I might have missed my
man
crouched in the fog if he hadn't warned me, because I'd loosed off three shots before I'd aimed properly, due to the unusual long sweet pull of the trigger which was unlike the customary on-off kick. 'The first did miss; the second screamed off the flashguard of the PPSH; and the third ripped into his chest.

There was still Mild and his gun.

J. raced to the guard, snatched up the sub-machine-gun and trained it from the hip round the deck, moving at the same time towards Miki.

°No one moves!'

I tossed the pistol to Kaptein Denny and got alongside Mild. Emmermann had moved away.

Miki's eyes were a couple of almond-shaped blurs in the fog. He'd already got his hand on the butt of his pistol when I jammed the stubby barrel of the PPSH into his ribs. Tay off! Don't move! I'll cut you in half with this if you do!'