Suddenly a light flashed below me. Then the framework of the ladder began to shake as someone began to climb. The guard! My heart leapt to my throat. For a second I was in a panic. The man had only to glance upward to see me in silhouette against the square light of the trapdoor. If I climbed back to the deck, he was sure to see me and I remembered what had happened to David. If I faced him, the odds were about even — he probably had a revolver, but I had the advantage of being uppermost on the ladder. But even if I were able to kick him from his hold before he fired, his absence would be noticed. All these thoughts raced through my mind in an instant, and at the same moment I leant away from the ladder and thrust out my hand. There was wood there, cases by the feel of it. Ammunition cases probably.
At that thought I began to climb quietly upwards, one hand outstretched, feeling the cases. The ship was supposed to be carrying more tanks than those I had seen on the well deck of the wharf. If they were stowed in the hold on top of the ammunition … I had climbed to the height of five cases when suddenly my hand encountered a void. I felt about. There was nothing within reach. I had been right. The hold was not stowed to the deck plates with ammunition boxes. I turned, put my hands on the last of the cases and drew my feet from the ladder.
A second later the guard climbed past where I lay on top of the cases. Then the trapdoor closed with a clang and I was in complete darkness. I felt about me with my hands. The cases presented a level surface running back from the ladder. I rose to my feet, and though I had moved carefully, I nearly brained myself on a piece of jutting metal. For a moment I crouched on my knees, nursing my head in agony. Then I pulled out a small torch I had borrowed from Fisher.
No wonder I had hurt my head. I had struck it on the caterpillar tractors of a large tank. In the pale light of the torch the monstrous machine reared above me to the deckplates. Next to it was another, and beyond that I made out a third. I crawled between them and then rose to my feet. The clumsy-looking monsters were ranged five abreast across the hold and attached by steel hawsers to girders which ran below the deck plates. There were ten of them altogether, and behind them were Spitfires with their wings stacked against the side of the hold.
Freya had been brought aboard in a tank. She might have been left in it. It was the safest place to hide a prisoner. I remembered my own experience of being trussed up in a steel container and made haste to locate her. It took me some time to visit each one, tapping against its steel plates and calling out her name.
When I had contacted every one without result, I came to the conclusion that either she was not there, or else she was bound and gagged so firmly that she could not even tap in reply. Perhaps she was unconscious. At the thought I felt a sudden surge of anger through my veins — not at Marburg, but at Sedel. The man was a fiend, and I could well believe the pleasure it would give him to hurt a woman.
I realised then that if Freya were in one of those tanks, the only way I could discover her was by getting into each one. That was a lengthy job, and before starting on it, I decided to go down the ladder and see what was at the bottom of it. The guard must have had some reason for going down there. As I swung myself on to the ladder, there was a sudden tremendous noise overhead. It grew louder until it was pounding on the deck plates above my head. It continued for a moment and then ceased. It was some moments before I realised what it was. They were bringing tanks from the wharf on board.
I began to descend the ladder just as the next one came on board. The ladder was set in a kind of recess in the bulkhead, so that with the munition cases flush with the bulkhead proper, it descended what was virtually a small square well. At the bottom I found a massive steel door. It required all my strength to slide this back. When at length I got through, I found myself facing more munition cases. Presumably this was No. I hold. There was no ladder here, but a rope hung down the wall of cases that faced me. I glanced up. The cases were stacked to within little more than a foot of the deck plates.
I went back into the main hold and, after closing the bulkhead door, climbed back up the ladder. I felt certain there was no hold aft. The space beyond the after bulkhead would be taken up by the engine-room. There was only one thing to do. I should have to search each of those tanks, and the planes, if necessary.
CHAPTER TEN
By the time I had finished examining those tanks the Thirlmere was under way. It was past eight now and I was hungry, dirty and dispirited. I had found no trace of Freya. Presumably she had been removed to another hiding place. It had not been easy to make the search thorough, for in some cases the hatches were difficult to open and some were tucked under steel girders so that I had scarcely been able to squeeze myself inside. However, I had managed to search thoroughly every tank, and now I sat on the back of one nearest the ladder and wondered what the next move was.
The hold was very hot and everything seemed to pulse to the rhythmic throb of the engines. Shortly after eight-thirty we hove to for a while. The silence seemed uncanny. But it only lasted for about a quarter of an hour. I did not know it at the time, but the Thirlmere had stopped for the River Police. MacPherson of the Globe had kept his word, and off Gravesend the police made a hurried search of the ship for David Shiel. On Baron Marburg’s assurance that David had left as soon as he had recovered — an assurance that was corroborated by the evidence of three of the volunteers, who swore they had seen him go down the gangway — the police left.
The next stop was at about nine-thirty off the Nore. This was for the purpose of picking up our escort, a destroyer of the Dover patrol. Thereafter the engines pounded away unceasingly, the whole ship vibrating as she forged ahead at her full ten knots.
I had made up my mind to wait until the early hours of the morning, and then to go up on deck and try to contact Schmidt. Events, however, were rather taken out of my hands. Shortly after ten the trapdoor was opened and a man with a flashlight descended. In one hand he carried what looked like a mess tin. I was certain of this when the light of his torch suddenly flashed full on it and showed me the handle of a spoon or fork sticking out of it.
He climbed down to the bottom of the ladder and, peering from the top of the munition cases, I saw him pass through the door into No. I hold. He was gone about ten minutes. When he returned, he still had the mess tin, but by the way the spoon in it rattled, I gathered it was now empty. As he passed me, I saw he wore the armlet of a volunteer. It was with a beating heart that I swung myself on to the ladder as soon as the trapdoor was shut. At the bottom I pulled open the bulkhead door and passed into the for’ard hold. The rope, I noticed, was not hanging in quite the same position as I had seen it before. After closing the bulkhead door behind me and fixing my torch to one of the buttons of my jacket, I swung myself up on the rope.
The gap between the top of the munitions cases and the deck plates was bigger than it had seemed from the bottom of the hold. In all there must have been the better part of three feet clearance. I went forward on hands and knees. Every now and then I had to duck for a steel girder. At last the beam of my torch showed me the for’ard end of the hold. There was no sign of Freya or of any case that might contain her. Yet I was certain that she was here somewhere. Well, there was only one place she could be and that was in one of the cases across which I was crawling. I examined the one I was kneeling on. It was iron-bound, and fitted flush to the next. The probability was that when I found the right one I should only have to lift the lid. A lock would have showed.