Then I heard a callsign loud and clear, which I read but did not recognize for what it was. The volume startled me, each beat scraping my eardrums with brash familiarity. The sender requested that I get in touch with him. My false call sign from what seemed years ago had come home to roost. He had sensed I was listening, as if my transmitter created sounds I didn’t know about. I was checking the leads when he called again, confident and close – but how close I could not know. A bearing put him due south, while the Difda coming to refuel us should be northwest.
He seemed to know where I was, or at least that I was there, and I fought not to rap the key and make contact. Radio silence was a negative weapon, but our one salvation. I waited for him to come on again, but heard nothing, so closed down and told Bennett of the rogue transmitter.
Out of the hatchway, Appleyard in the dinghy held a rod over the water. Two fish were already flapping in the bottom. He made a motion of silence, pulled another into the air and took the hook from its mouth. ‘I thought we needed fresh grub. The water’s full of them.’
‘You’d better emigrate.’
‘I wouldn’t starve, and that’s a fact.’
He threw his cigarette-end towards the float. ‘I found this gear in the survival box. No point not using it.’
I asked where the other dinghy was.
‘Armatage slipped ashore with a butcher’s knife to get some meat. That was hours ago, but Nash gave permission. We’ll have fish and fowl for breakfast.’ He gutted the fish with his black-handled service knife, and slopped the pieces overboard. A bird flew between the struts of the float and gobbled them, then returned to its perch to wait for more.
‘I hope he comes back.’
He laughed. ‘Armatage will be all right.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘After he left the mob he worked on trawlers around Iceland. Coalmining’s a picnic compared to that job. And this one’s a Sunday School outing. Bennett contacted him at Hull when he was at a loose end, so he was all gung-ho for this operation. He’d come back out of hell itself, though I expect you’d see the scorch marks. Not that there’s anywhere he can go on shore, unless he finds a nice cosy settlement with a few women and a barrel of whisky inside. Armatage was pissed on every op we went on, and nobody knew where he got the booze. Out of the bloody compass, I expect. Didn’t stop him doing his work, though. He was a gunner we could rely on.’
He recognized the noise in the sky sooner than I did and, netting his fish, leapt back inside and trod on my foot as he went by. ‘Action stations! Get moving!’
The pilot of the plane was scared to come below the mist and risk hitting shore or water. They’d obviously studied the chart and noticed that the area was good for concealment. Nash took the rear turret, and Appleyard climbed to the mid-upper.’ ‘No gun to fire without good cause,’ said Bennett. Clutching his computer like a packet of sandwiches during an air raid, Rose came down the ladder and went to the front turret.
The high-pitched engine seemed directly overhead, but there was another at a greater height going back and forth above the northern side of the fjord. Bennett was on the flight deck, and I tuned my receiver for any signals. Perhaps they were hoping to pick up some from me. Nash’s voice came over the intercom:
‘Can’t see ’em, Skip.’
‘They can’t see us, that’s why,’ growled Appleyard.
‘Shut up, and look,’ said Rose.
‘No talking,’ Bennett ordered. Would their radar pick up the Difda steaming towards us in the next fjord? ‘They don’t have it,’ I was told.
When the time came I didn’t send my one-letter call sign in case the Difda returned the contact and gave the game away.
‘We’re up shit’s creek,’ said Nash.
‘Without a paddle,’ Appleyard added.
‘Pack it in,’ Bennett called.
The engine roared as the plane flew above the water. ‘Bloody good altimeter,’ said Rose. ‘Can’t be more than a hundred feet.’
After two more runs the engine noises diminished, and went silent.
‘Be dark soon.’
‘I hope so.’
Bennett ordered stand-down. Appleyard imitated the wail of an all-clear over the intercom, then went to the galley and lay out fish in the big pan. ‘They must have got our number.’
‘And we’ve got theirs,’ Nash put in.
‘They won’t be back tonight.’
But we knew that they’d be back sometime. Such certainty was better left unsaid, and there was nothing at which a crew were more adept.
Because food was abundant, it was assumed that the more we consumed the lighter our load would be on takeoff. Nash as our quartermaster supplied plenty to cook: steak, potatoes, sausages and beans, to be eaten by whoever had the appetite. Bread was baked in the oven. Appleyard produced loaves. They were old hands at good living in the confines of a flying boat. From the ice chest he took tomatoes, and a cucumber which he cut so thinly that the monogram on the knife-blade was visible through each slice.
Bennett complained that the place stank like a black market restaurant. Tea and coffee were brewed in urns. The Elsan worked overtime, though Nash walked onto a dinghy and hung unashamedly over the side. After two days of hard work we ate much. A friendly routine fixed the domestic workings of our community.
‘Smells like Friday,’ said Rose. ‘Where’s Armatage?’
‘The bastard’s overstayed his pass,’ said Nash. ‘I told him not to take more than an hour or two. I’ll ram the bloody Pole Star down his throat when he gets back.’
‘Jankers, at least.’ Appleyard set pieces of lemon on a plate of fish: ‘Life must go on’ – and took it to Bennett’s room.
‘And then we were five.’
Nash turned on me. ‘It’s a piss-poor show, all the same. Far too serious for levity!’
I spun the coffee tap. ‘You’ve lost your sense of humour.’
He sat by the table to eat. ‘I never had any.’
‘No chips?’ said Rose.
Appleyard came back. ‘You’ve had ’em. I’m not frying tonight, but if you’ve got any complaints, tell ’em to the orderly officer.’
11
On time, I tapped my signal, and the responding letter almost pierced my ears.
When I told them on my way to the skipper’s room, Appleyard gave the V-sign. ‘If we’re up the creek, at least we have a paddle.’
‘We’ll drink a bottle of steam to it,’ Nash said.
Bennett’s voice stayed so leaden at the news that I felt halfway between obsolescence and being surplus to requirements. Then a flicker of relief crossed his lips as he whitened a cigar between his palms. ‘I suppose you realize that in this world it’s every man for himself?’
Before he could roll the chart away, I noticed a line joining our present position to Negombo in Ceylon. ‘I expect it is.’
‘The world’s gone bang, Sparks. No freedom left. Even when you harm no one, you can’t do what you like.’
I wondered whether things had ever been that way. I had also thought we were going to Perth, not Ceylon.
‘I trust this aeroplane to fly, and the radio to get the news I’m waiting for. It’s the technical stuff that keeps us going. Otherwise, watch out for the devil.’
‘What devil?’
He drank off his glass of white wine. ‘The devil who tells us what to do – and expects us to do it. The world’s full of them, and you’ve got to stop that type from making contact with your own devil.’ He tapped his chest, but not over the heart. ‘When they meet, it’s mayhem. So be on your guard – like I am. They create slavery – the greatest evil of all. Piss on that kind of devil, Sparks. It’s the only way to put him out. I’ve fought him all my life, but in this flying boat I’m as free as I’ll ever be.’ He was quiet for a while, then: ‘God is on the side of those who try to be free of anyone but Him.’