Cuttlefish (10 page)

Up on the slope, Tim watched nervously. And his stomach, now that it was completely empty, gurgled and grumbled about the bag of food up there in the rain. He could see the coaling barge was riding a bit higher in the water. Some of her crew were fiddling with the engine powering their big stern-paddle. By the looks of the steam-cloud, not with much success.

“Sprung a seam, I reckon,” said the bosun, knowledgably.

Then there was a green Very light flare, obviously fired low over the water. It whizzed over the barge and hit the bank they were on. “Must be troops from the garrison at Tórshavn,” said the bosun. “I reckon that's our recall, boys. Yes. The barge has cast off. I hope the others make it. I wouldn't care to be on an inflatable boat when they're shooting at me.”

“Look.” One of the men pointed. “That was what they saw.”

There were several small boats coming down the fiord—from the upper end. “They crossed over and got boats from the village at the top of the fiord!”

There was a crackle of gunfire…and the submarine—while Tim and his companions were nearly at the shore now—slipped away, underwater.

“They're leaving us!” screamed Tim, as the smoke trail from the engines bubbled up.

The bosun swore. Long and colourfully. Then said, “We'd better head back uphill. See if we can find the food bag, and see if Olaf's people will hide us. No point in your shooting at them, Mac,” he said to the man who was carefully lying down and taking aim. “It'll just tell them we're here. You'll never hit them anyway. They must be half a mile off. And we might need those bullets.”

“She's not running away, Smitty,” said the submariner. “Look at the smoke.”

Tim could do more than that, now that he knew what to look for. He could see the periscope, slicing through the water at speed towards the two small fishing boats. “They're going to ram them!”

The bosun shook his head. “Probably lift them.”

As he said that, the two attacking boats turned as one, racing towards the shore, the troops in them firing down into the water.

“Fat lot of good that'll do them. Water's powerfully slowing stuff. Idiots are giving the skipper their tails. Bows are harder.” As he said this one of the boats did a good imitation of a bucking horse, and nose-dived. It didn't quite sink, but there were uniformed men in the water. The other vessel…suddenly stopped. People fell off that too. Olaf laughed. “Hit Shteen for the vorter.” He tapped a rock.

They looked at him in puzzlement. Sam was quickest on the uptake. “They've run aground. And look, the other patrol has the inflatable out. They're rowing down as fast as they can, away, towards the sea.”

“They're thinking quicker than we are.” The bosun spat. “There are too many of us for that little boat. Olaf, are you coming with us? We need to get to where we can get aboard the sub. And this water is too cold for swimming.”

Olaf shook his head, pointed up into the cloud and the rain-shrouded mountainside. “You go. Me goot.”

“She'll take three, not more. Mac, boy, and Jonas, onto her. And
don't argue,” said the bosun. “We'll run along the shore, and you can come back for us if you've got the chance.”

So they paddled out, and sure enough, the
Cuttlefish
came up, water pouring off her flanks. “Jump. I'm going to fetch Smitty and Sam,” yelled Mac. So they did. Nearly had the little boat over, and the water was icy, but someone on the deck flung a loop at them and they were hauled, gasping, over the curve of the deck and up. “Get below. We're after the inflatable,” said the lieutenant.

“Sir, the bosun…”

“We'll be back if we have the chance.” The sub was already accelerating toward the inflatable, which was paddling towards them as fast as the submariners could. Tim could hear small-arms fire in the distance. Tim, heart-sore and scared, almost fell down the spiral stair and was hauled in. Just behind him came the first of the other patrol. The
Cuttlefish
turned. Tim desperately wished he knew just what was happening.

“Get yourself dry,” said someone roughly. It was the mate. “Sir. But I need to know—”

“That's an order. Move,” he said with rough kindness.

So Tim moved to his tiny shared cabin and shed his very wet clothes. Put dry ones on and went back out to try to find out what had happened.

He walked smack into Clara. She looked ready to faint. “Oh. It's not you.”

“What? What's not me?” he asked.

“Someone got shot,” said Clara, uneasily. “Just as they were getting them off the boat, I heard.”

Tim closed his eyes. “Are they…dead?”

“I don't know. I didn't even know if it was you or not,” said Clara.

Just then Lieutenant Willis came along. “He's alive, before you ask. Boy, they could probably use you with the greasers in the engine room.”

“Yessir. Uh. Who is alive, sir?” asked Tim.

“McConnell. We hauled him out of the water. Mac is not in a good way, but alive,” said the lieutenant. “I'd like to have a good surgeon to treat him, but at the moment he's holding his own.” The lieutenant was the submarine's medical officer.

“And the bosun, sir?” asked Tim. Ever since the net incident the bosun had looked out for him.

The lieutenant bit his lip. “He, Sam Jones, and the local, Olaf, fled up the mountainside. I didn't see them being pursued. It's possible that they got away. The local resistance is quite well organised. We'll be in touch with them by radio tonight.”

“Any chance of picking them up, sir?” asked Tim, still hopeful.

The lieutenant shook his head. “Not much, lad. The Faroes see quite a few submarines, though. If they don't get caught, there is a good chance of them getting a berth on another boat.”

It was not much comfort, but it was all he got. So he went to work in the engine room.

Clara could see how upset the boy was. She hadn't known either of the submariners that well, so it didn't hurt as much. Still, it felt like desertion. She smiled at the lieutenant. “I hope I am allowed out of our cabin again?”

“I didn't know you were confined to it. What did you get up to this time?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. The lieutenant was fast becoming one of her favourites.

“I didn't do anything. I got told to go into my cabin and stay there, when the Hussar prisoners were brought aboard.”

“Ah. The skipper didn't want them confirming that you, and therefore your mother, were actually on board. They're down in the brig now. So long as you stay away from there, it will be fine.”

“What are we going to do with them?” asked Clara.

“Probably drop them on one of the outer islands,” said the lieutenant. “We're waiting to hear from the local resistance if they can use them for some kind of prisoner swap—if the Imperial forces caught our men, that's likely something we'll try, not that they usually agree. But at least the two of them talked. Gave us a bit more information.”

“Oh? What did they tell us?” asked Clara.

“Us?” He smiled. “You're far too quizzy, young lady.”

“Please?” she asked, giving him her very best smile. She'd found it worked quite well. She wasn't too sure why.

He laughed. “You'll just pester it out of someone else, if I don't. They didn't want to talk either, but when we separated them, we persuaded each of them that the other one would never know, and it was a case of whether we dropped them overboard…or dropped them back on the Faroes. It seems the skipper was right. We lost our tail at the Shetlands, but they got a tip-off that we were heading here. The nearest ship was a long way off, so they came from Aberdeen in the airship. There were only twenty of them and they had a terrible jump, in the dark, and in the wind, onto mountainous terrain. They failed to find the rest of their squad—they left two injured men behind on the mountain and came on, just the three of them. They hoped to keep us from loading fast, or at least from filling our coal bunker—because the dreadnought
Invincible George
is on its way here as fast as it can steam.

The lieutenant smiled. “And I hope she enjoys searching for us. The weather topside is really foul. I think we may have finally shaken them. Finding a submarine out in the Atlantic is not that easy.”

Clara hoped that that at least was true.

T
im was in the mess, finally catching up on some of the food he hadn't seen much of, when Lieutenant Willis sought him out. He was a good sort, the lieutenant. “You'll be happy to know your friend the bosun and Jones are in good shape, and being hidden. They've been moved to another island—and now, too late, all of the Faroe Islands is under lockdown, so they can't move. Anyway, we can drop off the two Hussars.”

“Drop them off?” asked Tim.

“It's that or feed them. And they eat even more than you do. We'll drop them off on a life-raft just off Fugloy. It's a little eastern-most island with some sheer cliffs. It'll take our Winged Hussars a little while to find their way to one of the villages on the other side, and still longer to get news off the island.”

Tim found out, in his apology to Cookie about the bag and food, that oddly he had barely been at the fight with the Hussars. Well, he hadn't exactly been very good at fighting them. But it seemed that he'd turned up, given the others the distraction they needed, and they'd overpowered them. It was kind of…annoying. Not that he expected to be a hero or anything. Not after the mess he'd made of it. But he hadn't seen what Jonas had done in the fight either, so he couldn't say much. Cookie asked what had happened. “Dunno. I was too busy falling over my own feet and dropping my rifle to see.”

Cookie laughed. “That sounds more like me sort of heroics.”

Still, his adventure with the Hussars had its reward. Well…sort of. More like a punishment really. He got to clean the rifles. And
the quartermaster, who was also the armourer, showed him how to hold and cross-draw the cutlass. “I tried to do it in the fight. I wasn't any good at it,” explained Tim, when he asked for advice.

The quartermaster pulled a face. “It's really an outdated weapon. But I'll show you a few passes if you like. We should teach everyone. The Japanese still make a big thing of it.” He patted Tim on the back. “At least you have the common sense to admit that you know nothing. That takes guts in a youngster. You come back when you knock off. I'll give you a few lessons.”

Tim—as the junior cabin boy—also got the job of cleaning out the now-empty brig. It was not exactly something that looked as if it took a lot of cleaning. There were metal shelves for sleeping on, with folded-over edges, and the floor, walls, bars, and a metal roof. But the prisoners had been muddy, and had obviously collapsed onto those shelf-bunks. Tim got a bucket and set to cleaning it. One of the men had plainly rubbed the mud off his boots on the edge of the lower shelf-bunk. It had dried hard—as hard as cement, it seemed. Tim tried to rub it off, and then to chip it off with his fingers, and then, grabbing the folded edge, he tried his thumb.

Only there was something sharp under there. It cut his finger. He sucked it. It was a nasty cut, just on the thumb-tip. He bent down and felt—very cautiously—to see what on earth it could be that had cut him.

It was a knife. A long, thin-bladed, double-edged dagger, with a horn hilt. The blade must have been fully eight inches long, but it was narrow enough to be hidden on the inside lip of the shelf-bunk's fold.

“What are you doing with that, boy?” said the mate in his gruff Dutch accent, from behind him. Tim had trouble understanding him, sometimes. Even when he hadn't made him jump out of his skin.

“I just found it, sir. Under this shelf,” he explained.

“Ah!” said Mate Werner. “I'd better take that to the captain. Well found! Those Hussars must have had it hidden about them.”

The mate took the knife, slipped it into a pouch he was carrying.
“Well, get on with it, boy. And you do not mention this to anyone. We don't want to cause alarm.”

Tim, without meaning to, did tell. His next job took him to the galley, to wash pots and dishes. Cookie liked his dishwater almost scalding hot. Tim stuck his hands into it. “Ouch!”

“What's wrong, Tim-o?” asked the cook.

“The water's just a bit hot on this cut,” he said, holding it up.

Cookie inspected it. “Nasty! You was trying to shave your hands?” he asked, laughing.

“No, I was cleaning the brig, and I found this big knife under the bunk…um. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone.”

“No worries. I don't dob in me mates,” said the cook, giving him a cheerful slap on the back. “Wonder how long that's been in there for! Doing time for assault, maybe.”

“Um. The mate reckoned it must have come off those Hussars.”

Cookie shook his head. “Couldn't be. Mickey and me searched them. Stripped them right out of their boots. Must have been there a while.”

“Oh,” said Tim. He'd worked with Cookie. If Cookie did anything it was well done. Tim was sure Cookie wouldn't have missed a razor blade, let alone that knife.

Tim couldn't see any way of telling the mate without getting either himself or Cookie into trouble. So he didn't.

It was good to be away from the dangers they'd encountered. The submarine, out of sight of land, ran mostly on her sails—even during the daylight hours. The crow's nest had two watchers on duty then. Tim drew his first watch up there. Banks and Elman were aloft, and Tim had pulled his first duty with Jonas.

Still near the base of the rigging, barely thirty feet above the deck, Tim looked down. His hands clawed tight to the ratline. He froze. He wasn't used to being this high, and…and…and
open
.

Unfortunately, Jonas chose to look down just then. “Get a move on, you lazy little scut!”

“I…I'm scared.” The moment he'd said it, Tim knew he shouldn't have.

“Oh poor likkle baby. Darkie, you should love going up here. You've nearly gone white.”

Tim gritted his teeth and climbed another step. Standard, Jonas, and Banks had been at this for a while now. They caught it from each other.

“Want me to come hold your hand, diddums?” said Jonas, waving one at him. “Not so brave up here where the men are, are you?”

Tim climbed. Somehow he climbed. Not looking down. Sweating. Clinging to each ratline with all his strength. Eventually he got near the crow's nest. Banks came scrambling down past him. Gave him a shove—not hard enough to push him off. Tim screamed. Couldn't help it. He'd faithfully clipped and unclipped his safety all the way up, which most of the men didn't bother with, unless it was bad weather aloft.

“Scaredy-cat!” said Banks, not even bothering to clip in, descending with casual ease.

It was a four-hour stint of mockery. Tim barely noticed. He was just scared of the climb back down. He was not much of a watchman, but fortunately there was nothing to see.

When their relief came up, Tim was barely able to talk. It was Nicholl and Sampson come up to relieve, and Jonas greeted them with, “Nothing to see except that Darkie's gone white with fear.”

“First time aloft?” asked the grizzled Sampson with a smile. “Used to frighten me witless when I first come on the boat.”

“Seem to recall you had a bit of funk yourself, Jonas,” said Nicholl. “Show you something, kid.” He was clipped onto the safety loop on the edge of the nest. And he stepped backward. Hung on his belt, and then pulled himself in again. “You're relieved, Jonas. Get down. Kid. You stay here a minute. Sammy and I want to sort you out.”

Tim did, nervously. But it was less terrifying than going down. There wasn't much room up there, so both of the new lookouts hung onto the outside of the basket. “Tim—that's your name, right?”

Tim nodded.

“Reach up as high as you can; there is a high loop for clipping in. Clip it. Do it in two stages so you're never unclipped.”

Tim decided that no matter what they did to him, he was not going any higher. The flagpole terminated some fifteen feet above his head. Not going to do it! But he clipped in, cautiously.

“Right, young 'un,” said Sampson. “Now if I ever sees you unclipped up here again, I'll clip both your earholes so your head will ring like a bell for a week.”

“Jonas said we didn't up here,” said Tim, gratefully.

“He's an idjit,” said the older submariner. “Now, I wants you to lean your weight onto the belt. Then hold onto it, both hands. Then take your feet off the floor. You can't fall out of the nest, and me and Nicholl are blocking the gap.”

Gritting his teeth, but reassured by the rough kindness, Tim did it. Hung by his waist, as the mast swayed.

“It'll hold you, see. You see you allus have one clip on a shroud line, not on the ratlines, and you can't fall.”

“Take it slow going down. Don't look down. Follow a shroud line with your foot until you hit the ratline,” said Nicholl. “You'll be fine.”

It took him a long time to get down, but he got down, which for the last three hours he'd not been able to believe he could.

With the submarine up on her hydrofoil outriggers, and under as many of the gossamer sails as the sailing master could find space for, the
Cuttlefish
moved at a goodly speed across the water. There was a fair amount of sail-work to be done on some days. On others…well,
you had to be ready, but Tim found himself with—for the first time in his life—time when he wasn't out foraging for rats, or working at something. A lot of that time was spent on polishing the brass-work, and other make-work jobs that the officers invented to keep the crew busy and the ship looking polished.

It was also the time that cabin boys and junior submariners were supposed to put in extra work toward their certificates. Tim had never really thought about “what he wanted to be” until she had put the idea there. Now he thought about it quite a lot.

Clara went up on deck—many of the submariners were there, when they were off shift, and the ship was sailing on her outriggers, which fascinated her. They fitted flush against the submarine when she was diving or riding with her deck just on the surface, making the submarine more the shape of an ordinary ship. But for fast sailing the thin metal false hulls were pushed out and downward on curving arms, making hydrofoils filled with inflated rubber pontoons, and these allowed the sub to skim above the water. Submerged and on her electric motor the submarine was very slow, barely able to do five knots and only for a very short time. On the big coal-dust burning Stirling engines, she could, the chief engineer had proudly told her, do fourteen knots, on the snorkel. Running on the big gossamer sails, all the masts erected, “We don't rightly know, missy,” said the sail-master. “It'd depend on the wind. But faster than his smelly coal-fired engines anyway. A good bit faster.”