Chapter Thirteen

It was three o’clock on a grey morning when the U-boat, going north, crossed the wide opening of Tralee Bay and nosed its way into the estuary of the Shannon River. The equinoctial gales of late March had spared the western coast of Ireland and expended most of their force on the North Sea. There was a light trough on the surface, which made the U-boat roll a little as it came closer to land, but that was all.

“Nach Steuerbord Kerry, Ed,” said the U-boat skipper.

The man who was standing beside him on the foredeck was wearing a British officer’s overcoat and – oddly enough, if there had been light enough for close inspection – what seemed to be a pair of fisherman’s waders. He turned his head slightly and said, “Ja. Und nach Backbord Loophead.” Then in perfect upper-class English, “I must congratulate you on such an excellent and accurate landfall.”

The captain evidently understood enough of this to know that it was a compliment. He smiled briefly and turned to the business at hand.

The hatch in the afterdeck was open, and an inflatable rubber dinghy was being coaxed out of it, lowered over the side and held steady, while a motorcycle was slid down into it and held in position by straps on the gunwale. This did not leave much room for the passenger who squeezed in behind it, further encumbered by a large knapsack he laid on top of the machine.

When he had settled himself into position he said, “As long as the tide holds, I shall not have to use my outboard motor. If I have to use it eventually, you will have had plenty of time to back out and submerge.”

The captain nodded. They shook hands. No more words were spoken.

For the first few minutes the passenger was using his night glasses to pick up the strip of sand he had seen once before, from above, when out shooting. When he had located it, he replaced the glasses in their case and bent to the oars. He needed them only to steer the dinghy, which was being carried forward steadily on the making tide.

There was an awkward moment when they grounded and the motorcycle, pulling against its straps, threatened to capsize the dinghy. But the passenger had thought out the necessary moves, and five minutes later the machine was unstrapped and beached. Then he turned his attention to the dinghy.

First, he detached the outboard motor. It was no great weight, and swinging it in a half circle, he hurled it out into deep water. Next, he selected half a dozen of the largest rocks he could handle and packed them carefully into the bottom of the dinghy. Then he opened the valve in its stern and allowed it to deflate slowly, controlling the speed by opening and shutting the valve. As it went down, he folded the collapsed sides inward, over the stones, finally fastening them down with the gunwale straps.

The dinghy was now no more than a large, weighted, rubber bag. Stepping out into the sea, protected by his fisherman’s waders, he dragged it with him as far as he could go, gave it a gentle push, and watched the bubbles as it sank. The ebb tide would roll it out into deeper water.

The path that led up from the beach was steep but practicable. Alternately pulling and pushing the motorcycle, he inched his way up it, glad to reach the turf at the top. Here he paused for breath before going down to get the knapsack, which he had left on the beach.

By now, the light was coming back into the sky and there was no time to lose. He changed the soaked fisherman’s trousers for a more orthodox pair, which he extracted from the knapsack along with a small flask of brandy.

“Time for a nip,” he said, “to celebrate a safe landing. Viel gluck.”

He fastened the knapsack onto the back of the machine, which carried the blue and red identification of the Royal Engineers, and pushed it forward onto the road, which paralleled the cliff top at this point. Then he kicked the motor into life and departed sedately, in the growing light, in the direction of Limerick.

Joe and Ben were occupying a chair each, set back from the window, in the attic of 109 Abbey Wood Road. Both were equipped with field glasses, through which, from time to time, they inspected the premises of the East Plumstead Crematorium.

The chapel was a slant-roofed building with a row of uninspired stained-glass windows. It had, as Joe had seen on his previous visit, a large double door in the west side, out of sight from where they sat, opening onto the driveway, which led, through ornamental pillars, out onto the road.

The crematorium building was hidden by the chapel. All they could see of the crematorium was the door at the east end, which gave access to the furnace room and the top of a stubby chimney showing over the roof of the chapel.

“Clear enough, innit?” said Joe. “There’s some sort of opening in the wall of the chapel so they can shove the corpse straight through into the furnace.”

“Inhuman,” said Ben. “What’s wrong with being buried in a nice churchyard?”

“Cremation’s neater and cleaner,” said Joe.

Before this well-worn argument could develop, their attention was switched from the crematorium to the house at the back.

This was clearly the residence of the director, Mr. Robb. They had in view both the door at the side of his house, which gave access to the living rooms, and the back door, which opened onto the kitchen quarters. A green van had now drawn up.

“Baker,” said Ben. He looked at his watch and made a note of the time. A fat woman waddled out of the kitchen, accepted three loaves from the baker’s boy, exchanged insults with him, went back inside, and slammed the door. Ben embarked on a more interesting topic. He said, “I was wondering how you were getting on with Rosemary.”

“Rosemary?”

“The girl who works for Goodison.”

“Oh, you mean Rosie. She’s a very nice girl. Simple, but nice.”

“How did you—I mean—how did you get going?”

Joe deduced, from the way in which the question was put, that Ben’s experience of girls was limited. He thought it was time he had some elementary instruction. He said, “If you want to get started with a girl, there’s one part of her body you have to concentrate on. And I don’t mean what you’re thinking. I mean her stomach. All girls are hungry. Most of the time. So take ’em out and stuff ’em with toast and cakes. That’s the first step. Next, see if you can locate some other girl on the premises, or thereabouts, and take her out.”

“I follow that,” said Ben. From his close attention, he might have been listening to a professor expounding on a chemical experiment. “That’s to make her jealous, I take it.”

“Right. The old green eyes. And what’s more, it gives you two strings to your bow. You may find number two more attractive, in which case you can drop number one. If she’s not so hot, you ask number one out again. By this time, she’ll be panting to come. But”—here Joe shook a finger at Ben—“don’t make a common mistake: Don’t pretend you haven’t been out with number two. Talk about her, as much as you like. That’s the way to sharpen up number one.”

“Hold it. Oh, it’s just the mailman.”

The mailman knocked at the side door, which was opened by the gardener-handyman, whom they presumed to be the husband of the kitchen lady. He took delivery of some letters and three parcels – heavy, by the way they were handled.

Ben, after making a careful note, said, “I suppose you’ve done a lot of this sort of thing, you and Luke.”

“Oh, we was a great pair. The pride of H Division. Luke attended to the roo-teen. I supplied the inspiration. The man we was working for – Fred Wensley – ’e was nuts on this sort of job. The secret of success, he used to say, is continuous observation. Once I sat in a damp hole for a week looking at a soap factory.”

“That doesn’t sound very exciting.”

“Nor it wasn’t, until it turned out the factory wasn’t only making soap. It was turning out dynamite as well. Another time it was a bit more comfortable. We was up in a tree. We was after a sod what called himself Major Richards. A real snake. The sort of man who wouldn’t come in the front door until he’d got the back door wedged open.”

“Did you catch him?”

“We had him all lined up. Then a pompous bloody nit what happened to have the ear of the local police, made us hold off. Consequence, he got out and back to Hunland, where he is now, no doubt, patting himself on the back, God rot him.”

Ben moved back to the topic that interested him more.

“Those girls,” he said. “Did you get anything useful from either of them? They were working for Goodison, and it seems from these two messages that what they call ‘the special product’ went first to him. Then he sent it on to Robb here, for some sort of treatment.”

“Maybe in those three boxes we saw the mailman handing in.”

“Could be, yes.”

“And we shan’t find out by sitting on our arses half a mile away. What we’ve got to do is—oh, hold it. Here’s the dustman.”

To:        Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for War

From:   Sir John French, GHQ British Forces, Amiens

Dated:  May 18, 1915. Confidential

Sir,

As I reported in my 095 of May 12, the attack by the French Tenth Army in Artois, after initial success, was brought to a halt on May 10. I have now been requested to attack, in support of a further projected advance by the French, the location suggested being Aubers Ridges in the Lys Valley.

While regarding the idea of two converging attacks as tactically sound, I have, in duty, to point out one fact.

The artillery preparation for the French attack lasted for five days. My ammunition reserves are such that my CCRA, General Burch, has calculated that, at the most, all we can afford is a preliminary bombardment of forty minutes.

I am driven to the reluctant conclusion that unless a further supply of shells and, in particular, of heavy-calibre shells, reaches me shortly and can be guaranteed to continue on a regular basis, l shall be forced, in reliance on the escape clause granted to me when I assumed command, to inform the French quartier general that any sustained action would endanger the forces I have the honour to command and that I would therefore be unable to cooperate with them.

I am sure you will appreciate the serious results were I forced to take such a step.

While the above letter was being written, Daryl Forbes, who called himself Loki, the god of mischief, was sitting on the veranda of a bungalow at Walton-on-Thames, enjoying the May sunshine. The swallows had arrived and were building under the boathouse eaves. On the river, which ran past the foot of the lawn, two swans were paddling easily against the current.

An oasis of peace in a lifetime dedicated to strife and toil.

The bungalow belonged to a Mrs. O’Malley, a lady well past middle age but constructed of that strong Irish bog oak that defies the passage of the years. She had come to England from her native County Galway at the turn of the century and had spent the past fifteen years expressing her detestation of the British ruling class and helping any Irishman who needed help.

She had known Daryl for forty years, and on the recent occasion when he had come from Ireland to England, fully expecting to find a warrant for his arrest awaiting him at disembarkation, he had turned to her for asylum and comfort, both willingly given.

He had not stepped outside the bungalow since he arrived, and he could be sure of his hostess’s discretion. He was not so totally sure of Mr. Portlach. It was only because the editor had insisted that he had given him his address. He was in his hands, for he knew that the Irish Citizen was the only paper that would print his articles, and that only because they were acting under direct orders from Dublin.

He did not think that Portlach would go out of his way to betray him – why should he? – but he was a weak man, and under pressure from the authorities he might be persuaded to do so. However, a precaution had been taken to guard against even this contingency. After continued inattention to duty, Mr. Portlach’s original secretary had been sacked and replaced by a younger and more intelligent girl, Annette, who was the daughter of Patrick O’Hegarty, a leading light among the Killarney boys.

“A Killarney girl,” thought Forbes with a smile. She could be relied on to warn him if danger impended.

He was smiling at this comfortable thought when Mrs. O’Malley came out of the house with a tumbler of pink and frothy liquid and waited to see that he drank it. She said, “Finish it up. Every drop. Remember what the doctor said: You’re to be careful of yourself.”

Being careful of himself was something he had never found easy. The private warfare he had been waging with his pen for so many years had made him many enemies and much trouble. And had he achieved anything? Had not the time come for honourable retirement? Time to swim with the stream?

As though in answer to this thought the two swans that had been forging slowly upstream swung around, headed downstream, and were quickly out of sight.

At midday on the day that the letter from General French reached Whitehall, Luke arrived at 109 Abbey Wood Road to relieve Joe, who was glad to get back to his quarters. The affair with Rosie was going well, but like all newly bedded plants, she needed regular watering.

When the two watchers were settled in their chairs, and Ben had shown Luke his notes and brought him up-to-date as to the visitors to the crematorium they had observed, Luke said, “I hope Joe has been improving your tactical education.”

“Oh, he has. Very much so.”

“On what lines?”

“Well, it was mostly about girls and how to get alongside them.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” said Luke severely. Although he was less than two years older than Ben, and Joe was actually a few months younger, both had got into the habit of treating him as a promising boy who needed surveillance and encouragement. In an effort to assert himself, Luke continued the conversation in German, abandoning this only when he found that Ben was more fluent than he was. For which he felt compelled to congratulate him.

Ben said, “Most of the credit must go to Mr. Mills.”

“The head teacher at the Abbey Road tutorial place?”

“David Mills. He’s actually almost the only teacher left. Two young men he had have joined the army. There are some women who come in at odd times to teach French and Spanish, but David looks after everything else himself.”

“Sounds a competent man.”

“He’s all of that. And what makes him a good German teacher is that he isn’t a German. If you follow me. He’s had to teach himself, and that makes it easier for him to pass it on.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that,” said Luke. “But you could be right.”

“And since we’re talking about the school, there is one favour I’d like to ask you: couldn’t you arrange that I’m not handed over on Tuesdays and Thursdays as though I were a child being taken to school by his mother?”

“Do they do that?”

“I don’t know their names, but one or another of them looms up when I leave my place in Silvertown, follows me under the subway, gets onto the train with me, and sits there until we get to Abbey Wood Station. He does let me walk the hundred yards from there to the school without actually holding my hand, but he’s on my heels all the way.”

“Embarrassing,” agreed Luke. “It’d be Durkin or Kirchner. Good men in a rough house, but not much tact.”

“It’s broad daylight and I’m in the public eye all the way.”

“It was Kell’s idea, but I don’t suppose he meant it to be carried out in such a heavy-handed manner. I’ll have a word with him.”

“After all, no one follows Joe about. And he’s short of a leg.”

“One leg or two,” said Luke with a grin, “I’m sure he’s more than capable of looking after himself. In fact, he maintains that losing one of his legs has increased the strength of his arms – which were pretty powerful already.”

Having made his point, Ben relaxed. He said, “I can tell you something else about Joe: he’s champing for action.”

“Yes,” said Colonel Lemanoir. “I was sent a copy of it, too. Not the letter itself, but a summary of what it said.”

Kell said, “And I suppose you can guess why we both got it.”

“Surely.” The colonel brushed his moustache up with his forefinger and smoothed it down with the back of his wrist. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’m in charge of one of our main ammunition stores, and your duty is to guard against any attack on it. So, if such an attack is made and is successful, we both get our balls chewed off. And if we complain they say ‘We did warn you’ and point to this letter.”

“Typical bloody politicians,” said Kell. “However, I must confess, it made me think. You told this young fellow”—he indicated Luke, who was sitting quietly in the corner—” just how you were guarding this place …?”

“I did. And his only reservation, I remember, was the length of the sentries’ spells of duty. Shorter now. They’ve sent me another two troops from the depot.”

“Good.”

“Good, yes. But is it good enough? The way I was thinking about it was this: suppose I was a German, or a German sympathiser. What exactly would my targets be? And how should I attack them? To take the first question first: we’ve got a lot of new factories making shells. By which I mean turning out shell cases. But if they’re going to be useful as anything but flower vases, they need propellants and detonators.”

“And you’re still the main source of these?”

“We and two others. What used to be called the powder factory, at Walthamstow and an old established factory at Tonbridge.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler if the new factories did the whole job themselves?”

“Much simpler. And before the end of the year I expect they will. But at the moment three quarters of their staff are new boys. Keen, hardworking, and totally ignorant. They daren’t let them handle high explosives yet – not until they’ve had time to learn about it, which they will do pretty quickly. And when I said ‘new boys’, I should have said ‘new girls’ as well. More than half their intake are women.”

Kell thought about it. It narrowed down his problem, but made the solution no easier. He said, “Tell me the answer, then, to your second question: how would you set about attacking the three vital places?”

“If they can’t get through the walls, there’s really only one way open to them, isn’t there?”

“Attack from the air.”

“Exactly. We’ve had Zeppelins over most days since war was declared, and they’ve done a lot of indiscriminate damage. What I was wondering was whether, if they concentrated their efforts, they might be able to smash us. We’ve got any amount of explosive material stored here, and one direct hit—”

“I don’t deny the danger,” said Kell. “But what real likelihood of success would it have? The Zeppelins are only difficult to attack because, at the moment, they can fly higher than our fighter planes. But tell me this: what chance would a Zeppelin flying at, say, ten thousand feet – that’s almost two miles above the earth – what chance would it have of hitting a pinpoint target?”

“A comfortable thought,” agreed the colonel.

Luke was not so comfortable.

His mind had gone back twelve months. He was sitting outside the private dining room at the back of the Royal Duke Hotel in Portsmouth, listening to the German naval officers blowing off steam.

They were describing how they would set about the Royal Navy. “Über und unter” had been their war cry. Over and under. The attack from above had been from Zeppelins. The attack from below had been by submarine.

Was it a fantastic thought that a submarine, penetrating the triple defences of the Thames estuary, might discharge a torpedo into the bowels of the Royal Arsenal? No. It was surely a fantasy.