The Titanic Secret (25 page)

He’d debated with Bauer and Kortig about the confrontation, but he’d come to the conclusion that he had nothing to lose by telling the Englishman that his mission was futile. Maitland could not have found anything in Voss’s stateroom, because there was nothing in it to find, just as he would have found nothing if he’d searched the suites of the other two men. Each of the three had a sealed and waterproof pouch, the contents of which were vital to the success of their plan, and each of them carried their pouch about their person at all times.

So Maitland could snoop about as much as he wanted, but he wouldn’t find anything. The crates of special paper, the watermarks virtually identical to those on the current British ten- and twenty-pound notes, and the professionally produced printing plates for the same value notes, which Bauer and Kortig would use to flood the currency markets with counterfeit sterling notes almost as soon as the ship docked in New York, were locked away securely in one of the
Titanic
’s holds, well out of Maitland’s reach. And now Voss had told him that all three of them were armed, he doubted very much if the Englishman would dare try anything else.

‘Is that it, then?’ Bauer asked, as the smoking-room door closed behind Maitland.

Voss nodded. ‘Probably, yes. Now he knows that we’re onto him, there’s nothing much he can do. He’ll probably still try following us about the ship, and he might even pick the lock and try searching one of your staterooms, but it won’t do him any good. He won’t attack us, because I told him that we’re all carrying weapons, and if he is stupid enough to try anything, we can simply shoot him down.

‘The closest police force to us now is in New York City, and if one of us did end up killing him, I can pretty much guarantee we wouldn’t have any problem when the ship docks. We’d be three respected American businessman who’d been attacked by a renegade Englishman who was also an accomplished thief. Don’t forget that we have an eyewitness to him breaking into my stateroom, and I have powerful friends in the New York police force. In any American court – if it ever came to that, which I doubt – the verdict would be self-defence.’

Voss smiled, an expression of smug self-satisfaction crossing his face.

‘No,’ he finished, ‘you can forget about Maitland and that woman. And if he gets
really
annoying, I’ll tell Vincent to kill him, and this time he can use a gun and do the job properly.’

13 April 1912
HMS
D4

Perhaps because of the unfavourable weather conditions, which would have concentrated their minds, and no doubt also partly because of the lessons they had already learned from the previous refuelling operation, on this occasion his men made no mistakes and everything went like clockwork. Nevertheless, the refuelling took almost three hours, mainly because of the extra time which the submarine had taken to get into position and secure the lines from the oiler in the inclement weather conditions.

Hutchinson remained in the conning tower the entire time, watching everything and everyone, until the last link between the two vessels – the forward mooring line – was finally released, and he ordered ten degrees right rudder and engine revolutions for four knots, which slowly moved the boat away from the side of the oiler. And even then he remained in the conning tower for a further ten minutes, until the two vessels were well separated and the submarine was once again established on its pre-programmed transatlantic track, before he finally climbed down the ladder to the control room.

Hutchinson removed his foul-weather clothing, which dripped water onto the steel deck of his boat, poured himself a hot coffee to try to warm up, then told the signalman to bring the envelope containing the classified and urgent message to his cabin.

He signed for the message, opened the envelope, and looked at the encrypted text. Whatever it was, he didn’t expect that it would be good news. For a few minutes he didn’t move, just sat at his desk drinking his coffee. Then he walked across to his safe, unlocked it and removed the code book, then sat down again and started to decrypt the message.

It wasn’t that long, and really only contained one additional instruction, or rather two amendments to his original orders. The rendezvous position, and the time at which he was to be there, had both been changed. The new position was several miles to the south-east of the original rendezvous, which meant the boat had a shorter distance to cover, but instead of getting there at noon on the fifteenth, he would have to be at the new rendezvous a little over twelve hours earlier. The orders specified that he should aim to reach the position by twenty hundred hours – eight in the evening – on the fourteenth, which would allow him time to loiter in the area, and the absolute latest time he had to be there was twenty-two hundred hours, ten o’clock.

Hutchinson jotted down the coordinates, the latitude and longitude, of the new rendezvous, then walked back into the control room and bent over the North Atlantic plotting chart. He took a pencil and a parallel ruler, and drew a neat cross on the chart at the precise coordinates he had been given. The position of his submarine was of course also marked, together with the time of the last fix, just under ten minutes earlier. That meant the position was slightly out, but not enough to be significant. Hutchinson used the ruler and drew a pencil line between the last fix and the new rendezvous, and then opened up the ruler so that the other straight edge passed through the centre of the nearest compass rose on the chart, and read off the appropriate bearing.

That gave him a theoretical course to steer, but obviously the wind and open ocean currents would have an effect on the boat’s track. Hutchinson did a quick mental calculation and amended the course by a few degrees. Then he turned to the helmsman and issued his new orders.

‘Twenty degrees left rudder, and steer two-three-zero degrees. Engine revolutions for twelve knots.’

‘Aye, aye, sir. Course two-three-zero, speed twelve knots.’

‘Right,’ Hutchinson said. ‘I’m going to try and get my head down for a couple of hours. Number One, you have the boat. Our new course and rendezvous position are on the chart. My standard orders apply. Wake me if we sight another vessel, or if any department reports a fault, or if for any reason you are unhappy with any aspect of the vessel, its operation, or our navigation.’

The First Lieutenant, another lieutenant and a seaman officer only a few months junior to Hutchinson named William Evans, nodded agreement.

‘Aye, aye, sir. Sleep well.’

‘Tricky, in this sardine can,’ Hutchinson retorted, then left the control room.

13 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

Tremayne had given it fifteen minutes and then, after a final glance across the smoking room towards Voss and the other two men, he stood up and walked out.

Sitting at the table near the door were two heavily built, hard-faced men. As he passed them, both men gave him a flat, cold stare, and one mimed pulling a gun and shooting him.

Tremayne ignored them both, checked that neither of them was following behind him as he left and then, a few moments later, he strode into the lounge and sat down beside Maria.

Despite his placid appearance, she could tell that Tremayne was seething inside.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

‘That arrogant bastard Voss has just warned me off. He’s told me he knows I’m a government agent, and said, in so many words, that it was far too late to stop the alliance happening. He virtually promised me that the British Empire would crumble in a few years, and from its ashes would emerge a new and glorious German nation.’

‘Not much of a surprise there then,’ Maria remarked, with a slight smile. ‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Only to warn me that all of them are now carrying pistols and to suggest, slightly obliquely, that it would be better for my health if I didn’t wander about on the open decks after dark.’

‘He’s obviously trying to goad you,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Tremayne replied, ‘and he’s succeeding. But don’t worry,’ he added, ‘things like that irritate the life out of me, but they don’t affect the way I do my job. It’ll just make the moment I slice his throat all the sweeter.’

He leaned back in his seat and then grimaced slightly as a sudden throbbing pain lanced through his side.

Maria noticed immediately and extended her arm to help him.

‘You’re hurting,’ she said. ‘Has the cut opened up again?’

Tremayne shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘It’s just the kind of pain you’d expect from a wound like that. I’ve had a couple of similar injuries in the past.’

‘I know.’

Tremayne looked at her quizzically. ‘Has Mansfield Cumming been telling tales out of school again?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Maria replied. ‘I saw your scars, remember?’

‘So you did,’ he nodded. ‘Well, last night didn’t go anything like I planned it. I’d hoped that by now we would have taken care of at least one of the targets, and nobody on the ship would have been any the wiser. Instead, all three men are alive, perfectly well, forearmed about our intentions – or at least about my identity – and are now carrying pistols, just in case we try anything, and the deadline’s getting closer with every minute that passes. All I succeeded in doing was tossing a couple of bodyguards over the side and I managed to get myself stabbed in the process. It isn’t what you might call an auspicious start.’

Maria smiled somewhat sadly at him. ‘I have to confess that I’ve never before embarked on an operation which has begun in quite such a disastrous fashion as this one. And you also didn’t mention that we have no backup and no support and, as far as I can see, no obvious way of retrieving the situation. Back home, I’d say we were screwed.’

‘Thanks,’ Tremayne said. ‘That makes me feel a whole lot better.’

‘And I have a feeling,’ Maria said, ‘that there may be more bad news still to come.’

‘What? How do you know?’

‘I don’t. I’m just guessing.’

She pointed towards the door at the far end of the lounge, where a pageboy had just entered. He held a white envelope in his left hand, and he was looking hopefully around the tables and chairs, clearly searching for someone.

‘After all that’s happened,’ Maria went on, ‘I’m almost prepared to bet that that’s another message from Mansfield Cumming, and it’ll be news that we really don’t want to hear.’

‘I’ve seen you play poker,’ Tremayne replied, ‘and I wouldn’t take that bet.’

At the other end of the lounge, the pageboy looked directly at him, and the puzzled frown on his face suddenly vanished. He walked smartly through the room towards them, stopped a respectful two paces away and asked the question that Tremayne had been expecting ever since he’d first seen the lad.

‘Excuse me, sir, but are you Mr Maitland?’

Tremayne nodded, and held out his hand for the message that the pageboy was offering him.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and as soon as the pageboy had left, he opened the envelope.

‘Mansfield?’ Maria asked.

‘Mansfield,’ Tremayne confirmed, scanning the columns of letters. He glanced round to make sure that nobody could see what he was doing, reached for his notebook, wrote out the correct keyword and started to decrypt the message.

About five minutes later he sat back and read the plain text version to Maria.

‘Is that all?’ she asked. ‘He’s just changed the time we’re supposed to have completed this operation?’

‘That’s it. That’s all he said, apart from reminding us again to send that signal when everything was finished, and changing the time by which we have to transmit it, because of the revised deadline. So we now have twelve hours less than we expected to complete an operation which is probably impossible.’

‘Terrific. I suppose there’s no point in asking you if you’ve had any bright ideas?’

‘Not really,’ Tremayne replied. ‘I’ve only come up with one possibility, and I don’t think you’ll like it.’

‘Try me,’ Maria suggested.

‘I’ll tell you downstairs, in the stateroom. You go first, and I’ll follow in a couple of minutes.’

Maria gave him a quizzical glance, but didn’t argue or question him. She simply nodded, picked up her book and her handbag, stood up and walked out of the lounge.

Tremayne read the decoded message sent by Mansfield Cumming once more, then put the original and his notebook back into his pocket and stood up himself. He walked across to one of the large panoramic windows which were a feature of the first-class lounge, and for a few moments just stared out at the ocean.

Then he glanced round, checking that nobody was paying him any attention, turned and strode out of the room. Before he walked down the passageway to the staircase, he made sure nobody else was in sight and took similar precautions in each of the lobby areas as he descended the staircase to C-Deck.

A few minutes later, he opened the door to the stateroom and stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind him.

Maria was sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for him.

‘That was all very mysterious,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m just trying to keep both of us out of sight,’ Tremayne said, ‘at least as a couple. Look, it occurred to me that if we just try and tackle them one by one, there’s a good chance that we’ll either get shot ourselves, because Voss and his cronies will pull out their pistols and start blasting away, or at the very least we’ll end up under lock and key on board the ship when the gun fight’s over. Neither is what you might call a satisfactory outcome for us.’

‘Agreed. So what do you suggest?’

‘Voss knows what I look like, that’s perfectly obvious, and I’m quite sure that he’ll probably start having his men watch me whenever I’m on deck or in the public rooms, just to make sure I don’t get too close to him or the other two men. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t done that already.

‘He might possibly have noticed you as well, because we’ve been together in some of the public rooms and the restaurants, but I think he’s focused on me. I’m the danger, he thinks, especially after what happened last night, when the two men he sent out to kill me vanished without a trace. He might think you’re just my lookout or something. But what I’m quite certain of is that he won’t see you as a threat, simply because you’re a woman. And that might be the only advantage we have right now.’