81 
Beneath Channel Waters

Hartwell Barclay was no seaman.

It was the middle of the same night and sleep was useless. He would get all the sleep he wanted in the comfortable bed in his own room in the house with the red roof at Hawsker Head. They would arrive at first light of day.

If only the seas weren’t too rough to prevent their being able to put ashore. At least beneath the surface the movement was minimal, although still sufficient to keep him awake and his stomach queasy.

The craft lurched starboard a few degrees. Negotiating a channel crossing on the surface, with the wind blowing twenty to thirty knots, would have been impossible. The rough water above, however, did little to disturb their crossing down here, which thus far had been as smooth as he could have expected. That didn’t mean he had to enjoy it.

Knowing he was on his way back to England again filled Hartwell Barclay with strange sensations as it had earlier, reminders of his former life, and with them a growing unease about all this he had allowed himself to get involved in. It was not his conscience that was speaking. He had shut that up for good long ago, and its voice hadn’t bothered him in years. But English blood was in his veins after all, and it was impossible altogether to dismiss the inconvenient nagging of duty, decency, loyalty, and all the similar attributes which stir in the inbred soul of the English psyche.

He had planned simply to run this fellow Wolfrik across to Yorkshire, spend a day or two at the lighthouse until the Spengler defector was taken care of, however he planned to do it, and then bring them back across and be on his way returning to Vienna—over and back under the Channel undetected—along with the young fool Halifax, who had better have taken care of that greater fool of a wife by this time.

Now Wolfrik was talking about London!

Barclay didn’t like it. That’s where he would put his foot down. He would absolutely refuse to leave Yorkshire.

What could be the other mysterious assignment? These two he had brought on board with him were a couple of rum customers, that much was certain. He could see it in their eyes. Who was this other seedy character with Wolfrik anyway? Why was he along? He had the eyes of an assassin if he had ever seen one. He reminded him of the madcap Princip, who had started this whole bloody war back in Sarajevo.

Gradually Barclay fell into an uneasy sleep.

When he awoke, he glanced at his watch. It was morning. They should be sitting off the Yorkshire coastline and getting ready to surface by now.

He would be in McCrogher’s dinghy within the hour, and on land again shortly after that.