The sub’s deck left little freeboard, and its guardrails had been removed. One moment the elegant German was standing next to his kayak, the next moment a comber running the length of the deck swept him off his feet and the deck.
Chamonix lunged for him, but had no play left in his safety harness. Someone tossed a line, but by then Lutjens had disappeared under the submarine. Moments later, bits of stained neoprene bobbed in the submarine’s wake.
“Why wasn’t his harness fastened?” Alvarez demanded. The big Cuban sighed as if his worst suspicions had been confirmed. “How could it happen? Not another accident.”
“That Judas-Jonah is still with us,” said Wickersham glumly. He worked his bicep. “I don’t like it, not a bit.”
Chief Puckins interrupted, “I can’t figure it out, either, but one thing’s for sure. If we don’t launch pretty damn quick, the Russki radar is going to draw a bead on this boat.” He drew his hand across his throat.
Matsuma and I eased into our kayak. The old Japanese fisherman took the bow seat, and I the stern seat with the rudder pedals. I waved “all clear” to Dravit and in seconds the submarine began to submerge. The rush of white water tossed the kayaks around mercilessly, but our spray skirts kept us dry. The submarine slipped like a shadow beneath the waves, carrying Henry Dravit, former Royal Marine, and Keiko Shirahama, onetime Ama diver, away—perhaps forever.
“One man dead for sure in exchange for one man’s possible rescue. At best, there can be no net gain,” Chamonix called over the darkness.
I steered a course based on the sub’s last fix. Matsuma suggested course modifications to guide us through the large chunks of free-floating ice.
“I don’t fight to balance any books,” I returned. “Those are the values of someone else’s vocation.
“I fight to bring hope,” I added, addressing no one in particular.
CHAPTER 21
We had severed the logistic umbilical. For the next ten to twelve days, we could forget any outside support. As a small covert force we would be hard to detect, but if detected…
Our kayaks dodged floes as needles of wind-driven spray tormented the paddlers. My use of an azimuth was of secondary value, the real navigation rested in Matsuma’s hands until we reached shore. In March, much of the pack ice began to break up, he had assured me, and the great tidal range and strong currents along this stretch of coast left it navigable to within one or two miles of land.
March weather varied as unpredictably in Siberia as it did elsewhere. Though Siberia averaged only twenty inches of snow a year, a great part of this figure fell in March. March temperatures were generally milder than deep-winter temperatures, but they could plunge to sixty below without warning.
Matsuma and I held the lead position. The synchronized flutter of our double-bladed paddles moved us briskly up and over the rolling black waves. The seawater, which dripped from these paddles, or which splashed over the decks, froze in sheets down the length of our seventeen-foot craft. As we approached land, free ice became more plentiful. Clear passages through the ice fields became narrower and narrower, fanning into small, wandering channels, which forked like branches of a tree. Matsuma showed an unerring instinct for picking the fork that meandered toward pack ice. Then, for a quarter of a mile, we manhandled floes with our paddles to clear a path. Finally, we reached pack ice. There we climbed out and hauled the kayaks onto the ice. We portaged a mile, then hit a belt of open water. Once again we slid the kayaks into the sea. The belt was only a few hundred yards across and then we were back on pack ice. Before us lay disjointed piles of ice in pressure ridges. Here, a false step on seemingly secure ice could flip a man into water far colder than his dry suit provided for.
One by one we dragged the kayaks across the unstable ice. Then we portaged them a quarter mile before dismantling them. Once during the portage, Gurung stepped into a crevice. A sharp crystal ripped a small hole in the leg of his suit as his foot plunged to the knee into the water beneath. We weren’t able to unpack one of the portable stoves until ten minutes later. By then his foot was encased in rime. As we thawed his foot with the stove, it looked to me as if he’d have to be scratched from the remainder of the raid. Reading my mind, he shrugged off further attention and limped on ahead.
We hiked another mile across ragged ice before we reached a tree line, the first positive indication of solid land. We had reached the edge of the taiga, the vast, virtually unbroken expanse of larch, spruce, fir, and cedar that covered most of Siberia. There, at a distinctive stand of stunted birch, we buried the four kayaks in the snow and covered them with a white tarp, which we froze in place with melted snow. As an added measure we pushed a rotten tree over the tarp to keep the wind from blowing it over. I pointed out several terrain features that would help identify this spot to the returning raiders in the event that I was not with them. Then I went over each leg of the journey on the map once again to be sure that if we became separated, each man would have a chance, however remote, of rejoining the party. We then changed into our quilted Chinese uniforms and donned the white overtrousers. With the dark taiga background, we didn’t need overblouses.
We melted snow to quench what was now an overwhelming thirst.
“Why the Chicom uniforms?” Wickersham asked, putting on his fur hat. “If we’re going to wear someone else’s uniform, why not a Russian uniform? It’s a Russian camp.”
“Where were you at the briefings, Wick?” Chief Puckins scolded. “Cinders of hell, from here on out we’re Chinese to the rest of the world, remember that. The sub’s Chinese, the kayaks are Chinese, the weapons are Chinese, the skis are Chinese, and the sledge is Chinese. Folks around you? They’re a crack advance force of China’s People’s Liberation Army.”
The Texan had a point to make and he was not going to let up. “What did I ever teach you? Didn’t you catch the Chinese markings those Korean submarine fellows had painted on their boat when we boarded in Chinhae? Russkis are gonna think it’s made of grade-A fine porcelain.
“Now mind me, if I hear you thinkin’, there’d better be Chinese subtitles on your thoughts or you’re on report. Why, if you break out any rations, you’d better finish up the meal with an almond cookie and a wise saying.”
“Just throwing a little confusion in the game,” I added. “If we’re detected or pursued, I want the Russians to be worried about some larger movement by the Chinese and not devote all their energy to us and some insignificant corrective labor camp. We’re a little over four hundred miles from the Chinese border in a sparsely populated comer of the USSR. I want them to wonder if half a dozen Chinese divisions haven’t infiltrated through their back door. Also, it’ll confuse them as to our ultimate destination on the way out.”
“If we get out,” added Chamonix.
“We are not having radios,” Gurung interposed. “Is that being for the same reason?”
I turned to the steadfast Gurkha.
“No, too high a risk of RDF intercept. Russian radio direction-finding equipment is quite good, and in any event, for most of the mission there won’t be anyone to call for help.”
I didn’t add the second reason. I didn’t want our turncoat to be able to communicate with his sponsors, or to be able to trigger RDF triangulation.
Puckins hummed “White Christmas” and whirled like a Fifth Avenue model showing his new uniform with the jacket open, then closed, with and without gloves. This was the Puckins I remembered. In Japan and Korea, he had appeared distracted and lifeless, but since leaving the submarine he had reverted to form.