‘Now, it is quite straightforward,’ Devlin insisted, articulating each word separately to assist comprehension, ‘I shall start the engine and you need not switch it off until the boat is in position under the pier. To set the propellers in motion pull this handle towards you. You will then be under way. To submerge, push down the ballast-levers here and here. .’ By degrees, the instruction took a simpler turn. ‘Now remember, this one to move forward. These, to go down. This to come up again. This for speed. And this to stop. The pier is two hundred yards ahead, so you will need to surface more than once. You will see the flags ahead. Do you understand? Very well. Now it is time to practise.’
The engine stuttered into life, sending painful vibrations through those parts of Cribb’s body which still retained some feeling.
‘Open the ballast chambers,’ ordered Devlin. ‘Excellent. Now we are in diving trim. Take her slowly forward.’
He took McGee systematically through the manoeuvres required to steer the boat to its position below the pier. As it submerged completely for the first time, Cribb dimly registered that the experience lacked the charm of taking to the air in a balloon, but he was frankly more occupied with devising some means of escape than savouring a new sensation. He nudged Thackeray sharply with his heels. There was still not the faintest response in the somnolent features.
‘Splendidly done! You’ll cope without any trouble at all,’ Devlin announced from the controls. ‘It’s time I left you. I must call up the launch. Once I’ve closed the lid on the conning-tower, you can move off when you like. I’m leaving a clock here on top of this crate. It’s twenty-five minutes past eight now. You should have enough air down here to keep you alive for two hours, and you won’t need that much, will you? We wouldn’t want you to suffocate. That’s an ugly way to go. So there’s just a hundred minutes to wait for a moment of history, gentlemen. God save Ireland!’
After those heroic sentiments, Cribb’s final sight of Devlin before the hatch was sealed was the seat of his trousers moving upwards to freedom. The sound of the lid closing reverberated through the submarine boat.
Painfully, Cribb lifted his head to see whether McGee was equal to the task of moving the boat into position. He had appeared to understand Devlin’s instructions, but could he function independently?
The answer was not long in coming. McGee leaned forward and pulled a lever. The boat began to move through the water. Cribb heard water churning into the ballast chambers beneath him. The submarine boat dipped below the surface. In a few seconds they surfaced, presumably to get a sighting of the pier through the scuttles, and then they submerged again in the approved ‘porpoising’ mode of navigation. The effort of concentration going on in the few functioning parts of that shattered brain must have been prodigious.
The vessel surfaced twice more, taking the long, low dive that meant McGee was moving it towards its final berth below the pier. It powered steadily ahead for seven seconds before he shut off the engine. The vibration wracking Cribb’s body stopped. They glided silently forward for an interval too charged with tension to estimate accurately. Then there was a muffled bump. Another, stronger in impact, caused the boat to lurch towards starboard, before righting itself. A case of dynamite slid across the space behind McGee and stopped on the opposite side of the deck. The submarine boat was stationary. They were resting on the bottom of the Thames. Somewhere above them was Gravesend pier, decorated with the flags of the Empire and His Royal Highness’s personal standard.
Cribb peered at Thackeray to see whether the jolting of the boat had made any difference. It had not.
The situation, then, was clear. A cynic might have described it as desperately clear. They were sealed from outside help by three fathoms of water. There was no chance at all of Cribb releasing himself from his bonds: he might as well have been wearing a strait-jacket. He would get no help from McGee. Thackeray was insensible, and tied hand and foot like himself.
Not quite like himself. They had not bothered with the additional constraint of the two straps about the arms, perhaps because they recognised that the chloral was more than enough to incapacitate him. He was bound around the ankles and wrists.
By turning on his side and leaning forward, Cribb could see the face of the clock Devlin had left behind. Five past nine. If his only hope of release was Thackeray’s emergence from oblivion, then he had to assume that the constable would show signs of life at some stage. In the mean time it was sensible to employ himself trying to make some impression on the knots securing Thackeray’s wrists. When his assistant did come round, every second, every loosened strand, would be vital.
How would he do it? With his teeth. Thank the Lord for a decent set of grinders!
First it was necessary to move Thackeray on to his side, no easy achievement with a sixteen stone man. It was no use nudging him fitfully with the knees. The job required leverage. He obtained it by planting his feet against the stanchion to which they were tied and wriggling into a position where his thighs were pressed against his chest and his left shoulder was wedged under Thackeray’s right hip. By bracing his legs he succeeded in pressing the constable’s substantial form so hard against the side of the boat that it was forced to turn. Once the right hip was pushed off the deck, it was like rolling a log. Thackeray’s face turned to the wall and his bound hands appeared from under him.
They were tied with rope lashed two or three times round each wrist and then wound repeatedly round both, before being brought between the hands to cross the ligature so formed and bind it laterally. The two ends were secured by a formidable knot. The only encouraging thing about it was that it was in a position where Cribb could work at it with his teeth.
After twenty minutes, he had made no impression at all. It was Devlin’s handiwork, he decided. A boatman’s knowledge of working with rope, and a hammer-thrower’s strength is a redoubtable combination. In the next ten minutes, however, he succeeded in loosening and separating the first join in the knot.
There was also a change in the rate of Thackeray’s breathing, but whether it indicated returning consciousness or mild suffocation from lying face and beard downwards was difficult to estimate.
Twenty-five minutes to ten. Above them, the final arrangements for the Prince’s reception would be under way. Roads adjacent to the river would be closed to traffic and the inspection party would be parading on the pier, with the Gravesend silver band tuning up in the background.
He applied his teeth to the next section of the knot and worried it like a terrier, his lips smarting from contact with the rope-fibres. It came away more readily. Encouraged, he jerked the ends clear and shifted the angle of his head to meet the new formation. It was slower to yield, but he worked it loose by sheer persistence.
Ten minutes to ten. The simple reef knot towards which he had been working was now revealed. He fastened his teeth on the part affording the best grip and doggedly disengaged it. He had mastered Devlin’s knot!
As if in tribute, Thackeray emitted a long, low groan.
Five to ten.
‘Thackeray! Can you hear me?’
No response.
There was still the binding round the wrists to loosen. Cribb switched his attention back to it, displacing it thong by thong to reveal the weals where the rope had bitten into Thackeray’s wrists. When the last piece fell away and the hands separated, the constable groaned again.
Ten o’clock.
To quicken the process, Cribb leant forward and sharply nipped the tip of Thackeray’s right forefinger with his teeth.
‘Hey!’ said Thackeray.
Cribb gripped the constable’s sleeve in his teeth and rolled him on to his back. ‘Wake up, man!’
Another groan.