Authors: Hammond Innes
Maddon's Rock
CONTENTS
The story of the Trikkala is a strange one.
Reported sunk in 1945, she sails into port one year later, barely afloat, her crew and valuable cargo missing. What happened during that year at sea? What secrets of betrayal and murderous greed played out on the desolate islet of Maddon’s Rock?
Proceeds from this book will be donated to ASTO (Association of Sail Training Organisations) – a charity which promotes adventure at sea for young people.
Ralph Hammond Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex, on 15 July 1913 and educated at Cranbrook School, Kent. He left school aged eighteen, and worked successively in publishing, teaching and journalism. In 1936, in need of money in order to marry, he wrote a supernatural thriller,
The Doppelganger
, which was published in 1937 as part of a two-year, four book deal. In 1939 Innes moved to a different publisher, and began to write compulsively, continuing to publish throughout his service in the Royal Artillery during the Second World War.
Innes travelled widely to research his novels and always wrote from personal experience – his 1940s novels
The Blue Ice
and
The White South
were informed by time spent working on a whaling ship in the Antarctic, while
The Lonely Skier
came out of a post-war skiing course in the Dolomites. He was a keen and accomplished sailor, which passion inspired his 1956 bestseller
The Wreck of the Mary Deare.
The equally successful 1959 film adaptation of this novel enabled Innes to buy a large yacht, the
Mary Deare
, in which he sailed around the world for the next fifteen years, accompanied by his wife and fellow author Dorothy Lang.
Innes wrote over thirty novels, as well as several works of non-fiction and travel journalism. His thrilling stories of spies, counterfeiters, black markets and shipwreck earned him both literary acclaim and an international following, and in 1978 he was awarded a CBE. Hammond Innes died at his home in Suffolk on 10th June 1998.
Air Bridge
Attack Alarm
Atlantic Fury
Campbell’s Kingdom
Dead and Alive
Delta Connection
Golden Soak
High Stand
Isvik
Killer Mine
Levkas Man
Medusa
North Star
Solomons Seal
Target Antarctica
The Angry Mountain
The Big Footprints
The Black Tide
The Blue Ice
The Doomed Oasis
The Land God Gave to Cain
The Last Voyage
The Lonely Skier
The Strange Land
The Strode Venturer
The Trojan Horse
The White South
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
Wreckers Must Breathe
O
M
Y
W
IFE
You have fed me
Treasure Island
for years as the most exciting adventure story ever written. Well, this isn’t
Treasure Island
. But there is an island. And there is bullion. And it is an exciting adventure story. I hope you will like the finished book as much as you did when I outlined the story to you at Cape Cornwall.
Aldbourne
.
December
, 1946.
Maddon’s Rock
WE SAILED FROM MURMANSK
THE STORY OF
the
Trikkala
is a strange one. She was a Greek ship, taken over by Britain in 1941, and operated by the Kelt Steamship Company on behalf of the Ministry of War Transport until 5th March, 1945. At 0236 hours on that March morning her career officially ended. A single paragraph, in a trade paper, records her end: The s.s.
Trikkala
, a freighter of 5,000 tons, was mined and sunk on 5th March, 1945, with the loss of twenty-three lives. She was in convoy and her position at the time of the sinking was approximately 300 miles north-west of Tromso.
Yet, on the 16th of May, 1946—just over a year later—the Naval W/T station, Loch Ewe, near Oban, picked up an SOS from a vessel describing herself as the
Trikkala
. Shortly afterwards this vessel radioed information that left no doubt as to her identity. It was the
Trikkala.
In view of the importance of her cargo, an Admiralty tug was sent out to bring her in, and for two days there was hardly a person in the country who was not speculating on the mystery of her dramatic reappearance.
I suppose I know more about the
Trikkala’s
story than any one still living, except perhaps Bert Cook, who was with me. I was one of the survivors of the sinking in March, 1945. And it was I who sent out the SOS from the
Trikkala
in May, 1946. Accordingly, I have set out here the full story as I saw it, beginning from the night before she sailed from Murmansk.
It was the 2nd of March, 1945. Bert and I were awaiting repatriation to England. Murmansk was bitterly cold. The wind ran shrieking through the great wooden shed of a warehouse in which we were billeted. It tore the cardboard packing from the broken window panes. It ripped in under the eaves and up through the cracks
between the floorboards. And with it came a powdery drift of snow that sifted along the floor like sand across a desert. The vast storage floor of the shed was packed with Red Army men, vague doss-house shapes, huddled in blankets that were whitened with snow.
There were eight of us awaiting repatriation and we had been allocated a room to ourselves that had once been an office. It had a calendar and a brazier. That was all the furniture. Most of us were huddled around the brazier for warmth that night. Twenty-two days were marked off on the calendar. We had been waiting for a ship all that time. I remember thinking how in England the blackthorn would be out and there would be a smell of spring in the air. But in Murmansk the trees were black and the world was still in the grip of winter. There was ice everywhere, and a heavy blanket of snow muffled all sound, so that even the great Red Army supply wagons, with their iron-shod wheels, moved through the streets without a sound. Murmansk will always be to me a memory of intense cold, of men’s faces ruddy in the glow of a brazier and of the never-ceasing noise of the wind above the clatter and whistle of the trains and the singing of the Russian soldiers.
An extra heavy gust of wind beat against the windows. One of the cardboard panes blew out and an icy blast shivered through the room. “Cor stone the crows!” Bert Cook muttered. “’Ark at that awful wind. As if life ain’t miserable enough, but it ’as ter blow a blizzard. An’ it’s me berfday tomorrer. Nice berfday I’m goin’ ter ’ave, I don’t fink.” He looked round the bare wooden room, cluttered with kit, and then leaned closer to the brazier. He had a little monkey-like face. It was creased by laughter, and the lined, almost leathery skin was reddened by the glow of the hot coals. He had had all his teeth out just before leaving England and his cheeks had fallen in around the empty gums like the cheeks of an old crone. “S’pose the Ruskies ain’t got no glass, poor devils,” he went on. “But they might board the winders up—cardboard ain’t no good in this sort of wevver.” He got up then and fitted the bit of cardboard
back into the window. He leaned a rifle against it to keep it in place. Then he came back to the fire. “Reminds me of the Free Fevvers da’n St. Pancras way, this place does. Always was a draughty pub.” He grinned at the others and spread his dirt-stained hands to the blaze.”
I liked Bert. He was the sort of man that makes four years in the ranks seem worth while. Nothing ever really got him down. He was a Cockney. His home was in Islington. But Islington or Murmansk, it didn’t worry him. I’d met up with him at a Russian Ordnance depot near Leningrad. I had been sent over to assist in the maintenance of certain predictors and Bert was there with a gunnery team, demonstrating the drill for a new gun Britain had recently sent to Russia.
Bert was gazing round the group of faces huddled close to the brazier. “Help! What a country!” he muttered. “No wonder Jerry couldn’t stick it.” His face brightened to a grin. “I got ’arf a bottle of vodka in me kitbag. I was savin’ it fer termorrer. But we’ll knock it back when we’re in the ol’ scratcher. That’ll help liven up the cockles.” And he rubbed his hands over the blaze. Then his face clouded. “But when I fink of the Ol’ Woman all alone wiv the kids in Islington,” he added, “it fair makes me blood boil. A munf’s disembarkation leave we got waitin’ fer us when we land. An’ we’re stuck in this dump. Look at that calendar! Free whole weeks we bin hincarcerated in this ware’ase—the job finished, guns all ready ter bang away at Berlin an’ a nice word o’ praise from a Rusky colonel. An’ wot do we get? Free weeks in this ’ell ’ole. Dartmoor ain’t got nuffink on this place. Got any fags left, Corp?”
I opened my case. “Gawd!” he said. “Only four left—an’ Rossian at that. Better save ’em ter smoke wiv the firewater. Where’s Mister Bloomin’ Warrant Officer ternight?”
Warrant Officer Rankin was the senior occupant of the room. He was large and fat with a smooth face and a soft voice. Blue eyes peered at you over little pouches of white flesh and his hands, which pawed eagerly at the shoulder of any subordinate who was sufficiently servile,
were podgy and neatly manicured. When angry his soft voice became high-pitched. He stood very much on the dignity of his rank. And one felt that without that advantage of rank, his voice might easily deteriorate into a whine. He had been sent over to do a technical job for the Navy and was temporarily in charge of some Naval stores.
“The same place as he was last night” I told Bert in answer to his question, “and the night before and every night since we’ve been here.”
He gave an evil cackle, displaying his toothless gums. “Calls it learnin ’Roosian. That’s a joke, that is. When ’e’s in China, ’e learns Chinese, an’ when ’e’s in Sigypore, he learns whatever the native lingo is there. I bet it’s the same words ’e learns everywhere ’e goes.” The faces round the brazier cracked with laughter. They all hated Rankin’s guts. “Where’s ’e get the dough from, anyway?” Bert demanded.