Betrayal (44 page)

No voices filtered up from below, and when she pressed an ear to the floor, it was as if they'd all been taken off and she'd slept right through everything.

The light came around again. There were two beams, their source the same, they at 180 degrees to each other, so there wasn't much time between. A pale pinkish glow touched the glass, but died away and was taken over by the brilliance of the light. She must have been awakened by something …

Stealthily Mary reached for the rucksack to close her fingers about its straps. She would only have time to touch the loose wire to its battery terminal and push the heel of her hand down against the one that ran through the crystal of the watch.

‘I've awakened you, Mrs. Fraser. Please accept my apologies.'

It was Huber and he was standing just to the left of one of the windows.

‘Come and have a look at this.'

‘What time is it?'

‘0120 hours.' One twenty a.m.

Still clutching the rucksack by its straps, she made her way over to him. The light came round and Mary saw how intently he watched the sea. He was smoking a cigarette and might not smell the gelignite …

‘Now, I think,' he said.

Flames erupted on the horizon. The billowing pillar of fire was brilliant, the night sky instantly lit up, giving but a glimpse of a tanker, Huber telling her the ship must be at least ten kilometres away.

The beam of the light passed overhead. As quickly as it had come, the light departed and in three massive flashes of fire, the tanker rose up at its bow to slip beneath the waves.

Huber caught the cry she gave and gripped her by an arm. There was a further explosion some distance to the north. As the torpedoes struck this tanker, the whole thing flashed into view, much closer than before. Huge detonations seemed to rock the surrounding seas as the light came round again and his hold on her tightened. Men would be spilling from that burning ship, the seas on fire. There'd be flames in their hair, a face would glisten in the heat, a hand thrown up.

‘Please don't make me watch. I … I know what I've done. I've had nightmares about it and can only hate myself.'

The flat and distant sounds of three massive explosions reached them.

‘So now we wait,' was all he'd say, thought Huber, but had she lost that newfound resilience, that toughness? he wondered. Had she seen that for her and the husband there really was no longer any hope?

Another ball of fire erupted on the horizon, a munitions ship this time, no chance for the men to escape—she'd know this—just a brief glow and then total darkness.

‘Why have you come up here?' she asked, unable to hide the bitterness.

He would not even bother to look at her. ‘Because from here there is a better view.'

In the morning there were bodies washed up along the shore and an oil slick that stretched far out to sea; in the afternoon the overturned remains of a lifeboat. At 5.00 p.m., a destroyer of the Royal Navy stood off about a mile and Mary knew there would be an exchange of wireless signals. O'Bannion and the Tulford woman would have to watch the operator closely. If only the ship would come in and send a boat ashore, if only …

But it turned away in the continuing search for survivors and she knew then that its captain had been told none had reached the island.

At suppertime Huber brought her a mug of broth, four sea biscuits and a plate of stew. ‘Now do you see how things are?' he asked. He wasn't an unkindly man, not that she knew of anyway. He was simply a man at war, under orders and with a duty to fulfil.

‘Mrs. Fraser, it is time we had a little talk. Please eat, though, while it's hot. Your husband has turned himself into an excellent cook but is worried and has asked that, your having seen how things are, you be told not to do anything foolish. Because of our position here, O'Bannion and as many of the others as possible will have to accompany us. We will, of course, put them ashore off the west or southwest coast, if at all possible, since of them only Nolan is to accompany us as agreed. If we can't do that, however, they will all have to accompany us to the Reich, and we will then have to find some way of returning them.'

‘Why is it you're telling me this?'

‘Because, my dear young woman, surprising as it may seem, we do not wish to see any further harm come to you or your husband. O'Bannion understands this clearly, but …' Huber gave it pause. ‘For the moment has the upper hand, of course.'

‘Then what you're saying is that if we behave, you'll let us stay here. Is that it?'

‘And leave you to face British justice instead of a heroine's welcome?'

‘Vice Admiral, you know very well what I mean?'

A realist, was that it? ‘You, your husband and Colonel Bannerman will, I assure you, be taken to the Reich. Now please, eat while it's hot. The first duty of any prisoner is always to fill one's stomach.'

‘I thought that duty was to escape?'

‘Even though for yourself there can be none if we leave you behind?'

Mary took a sip of the broth, then reached for the spoon. The stew was excellent and suddenly she found herself famished.

Huber watched her eat. She was very thorough and that was a good sign. ‘Nothing further must happen. Just let us get off this island. I can assure you things will not be nearly so bad as imagined.'

‘Aren't submarines cramped for space? Look, I know there won't be much room.'

‘But, my dear lady, what you witnessed last night has a direct bearing on things. U-397
¹
has used its torpedoes and can now afford us all the room we need.'

Could it be that simple? ‘When … when is it to come in?'

The woman felt quite sick at the thought and had let him see this, so must believe emphatically that he had been lying to her and that she and the doctor would be shot. ‘In two nights and not before then, so please remember what I said. No trouble, and a secure future.'

When he reached the ground floor, Mary overheard him telling Galway, ‘She clings to that rucksack as a drowning person does to a life preserver. Let her settle down and then find out what's in it.'

Galway hung the lantern from one of the beams as Nolan grinned and hobbled across the floor on makeshift crutches. ‘Surprised to see me up and about, are you? Ah and sure that husband of yours set this ankle of mine in plaster like a magician and gave me something to numb the pain.'

Dragging the rucksack into her lap, Mary slid her hand inside it. ‘I want to see Hamish.'

And wasn't that voice of hers tight? ‘Thought you had us there for a while, didn't you?'

Did he mean the fog station or the barrow? ‘My burns are infected. Hamish had best look at them.'

And wary as a little mouse. ‘Dermid, would you say the lady's been hiding something in that sack of hers?'

Gripping it tightly, she leaned away from them. ‘There's nothing in this but my clothes.'

Yanked to her feet by Galway, Mary reluctantly let them take it from her. A pair of woollen socks were tossed out, a flannel shirt, pullover, hiking boots, underwear, a forgotten packet of dried soup … When they came to the shortbread tin, Nolan glanced questioningly at her, for there were two loose biscuits lying on top of the thing with a scattering of crumbs.

‘I was hungry. I had to eat something, didn't I?'

‘A whole tin of shortbread?' Fay would have sorted the woman out, but Fay was no longer with them.

Black electrical tape had been placed around the tin to seal it, but this had been removed and now only its stickiness remained.

‘I wouldn't open it, if I were you,' she said. ‘You see, if you listen closely you'll hear something sloshing about in there and know soon enough if you …'

‘Jesus, Liam, the slut's pissed in it!'

Galway flung the tin away, but the electrical tape was something they weren't about to forget.

It was Nolan who said, ‘You dismantled the bomb I fixed to that motorcar of your husband's, or so he's been generous enough to have told everyone. Full of praise he was, but that's something of a puzzle, now isn't it?'

She would have to gaze steadily at them. ‘I wouldn't know, now would I, my being held here alone?'

They looked behind her, looked up into the timbers above, looked everywhere they could, she ready to dodge and run if possible.

‘Take off that coat,' said Nolan. What the devil was she hiding? Above them the gear wheels meshed, the light came around, but she'd not have chanced a hand up there, would have lost it for sure.

‘It's too cold to take off my coat.'

‘Do it!

They were afraid, all right, afraid that she might just be able to stop them from getting away but couldn't know of the bomb.

Reluctantly Mary removed her coat and then, gently pulling up her things, let the sight of her breasts unsettle them. ‘Will I ever be able to suckle a child, Nolan, should you people let me live?'

‘Why the bloody electrician's black tape?'

‘Ria. Mrs. Haney was simply determined to keep our girl Bridget from getting at the shortbreads she kept for my husband.'

At 9.00 p.m. she was taken downstairs to see Hamish. Everyone was crowded into the wireless room. The BBC news broadcast had just started. Though security negated one's completely trusting the accuracy of such reports, the War Office had had to admit something. Seven ships had been sunk in the raid, with a total loss of 32,000 tonnes of supplies and materiel, and 217 men. At least three U-boats had been involved, perhaps even four. Mr. Churchill's comments were particularly vitriolic, the prime minister vowing to bring all those responsible to British justice no matter how long the war should last.

As Hamish attended to her burns in a far corner, he managed to tell her that the Germans had used the attack to bring U-397 close in to the island but that the sub was now lying low. ‘The Tulford woman made contact during the raid, Mary.
Och
, there was so much wireless traffic, I greatly fear the signals went unnoticed.'

‘Why isn't she using her own set?'

It was against the wall by the door. ‘There's no need. Apart from her codebooks, the station's wireless has everything she could possibly want.'

As he applied more of the Glasgow Cream, the news broadcast went on to events in North Africa. One of the fiercest battles of the desert war was now raging at some strange-sounding place in Libya. In Russia, units of the Waffen SS had reached to within twenty kilometres of the Kremlin but were being held up by the intense cold of winter. The battleship
Barham
had been sunk in the Mediterranean by a U-boat. Off the west coast of Australia, the cruiser
Sydney
had encountered an enemy raider and, after a stiff exchange of fire, had gone down with the loss of all hands.

When the broadcast came to an end, there was some discussion among Huber and the others; little but disgruntlement amongst Bannerman and the three remaining crew members, one of whom was older than the other two of middle age and all of whom must surely be wondering what must happen to them.

It was Erich who came to escort her back upstairs. As he set the lantern on the floor next to her rucksack, he seemed at a loss for words, the light serving only to etch his uncertainty further.

‘Mary, where is whatever you've been hiding from us? Nolan and Galway won't have looked thoroughly enough. The Irish are fools and will never be rid of the British, not in a thousand years.'

‘Nolan's cleverer than you think. If I were you, I'd make sure they have the money and the weapons aboard that submarine. If not, you and the others will never get off this island. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep.'

She must hate him. ‘Are you really carrying our child?'

‘Would it have made the slightest difference?'

‘
Ach
, be sensible. The vice admiral is determined to take you and Hamish and the colonel with us, no matter what O'Bannion and the others say. There are places in the Reich, Mary, homes for such children. I would be only too willing to …'

‘To what, Erich? See that it is raised as a good Nazi?'

She would never listen. ‘I would have thought that after the raid last night you'd have seen the sense in what I'm saying?'

‘If you mean the cruelty, then yes, I witnessed it.'

The vice admiral had insisted that when he'd first met her at Tralane, he had been certain she had found a new strength in herself, a determination that could well make trouble for them. ‘The Reich will win, Mary. It's stupid of you to think you can hide things from us. Now where is it?'

‘Or you will burn my other breast?'

‘Please, you know what I mean.'

‘Then understand that I've hidden nothing. Nolan and Galway were very thorough and are a lot smarter than you think.'

Kramer picked up the lantern and, walking past her to the light's mechanism, held it high. She really couldn't have hidden anything up there. To do so would have been to risk losing a hand or arm. Like all lighthouses, though, even those with the most antiquated of systems, there was a spare mechanism in case of breakdown. Here the reserve mechanism lay directly below the one in use and right at floor level and thus much easier and safer for her to get at. All that was needed, when the mechanisms were to be changed, was to swing the one above out of the way as it was lowered, and then to hoist this one up and into place.

He began to search in earnest. Silently Mary moved away. She couldn't let him find the bomb. By a stroke of luck there had been a flange in among those turning gear wheels, one just big enough to hold it, but she had had to let the watch dangle from the wires.

Stumbling on the stairs, she saw him swing the lantern round, she now running up the rest of the way to push on the trapdoor as he yelled, ‘Mary, don't! It isn't safe!'