After telling me this, she asked whether anyone had been able to communicate with the authorities. I told her how far I had got. When I had finished, she said, ‘But you are not hopeful?’
‘Frankly, no,’ I said. ‘But we can’t be sure.’
‘Then if we are going to try anything on our own, we had best wait until we reach Norwegian territorial waters?’
‘If we can,’ I agreed. ‘But don’t forget, even supposing they are prepared to let you have a quiet night, they will be down in the morning.’
‘How silly of me — of course.’ She was on the point of putting another question when she stopped. There was a sudden empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I did not need the rush of cold air to tell me what the sound was that had stopped Freya. The trapdoor had been thrown back.
Then there was a soft thud as it closed again and an instant later a torch was switched on. Freya and I had slid behind the nearest tank. Peering round its gun turret, I saw that two men were descending the ladder. I did not know what to do. Naturally my first thought was that it was Sedel and his companion returning to question Freya about something. And once they discovered that she was no longer there, the hunt would be up. We had no weapons. The position was hopeless.
But the men, instead of climbing to the bottom of the ladder, dropped off it on to the cases. My heart was in my mouth as I thrust Freya farther into the shadow of the tank. For they were coming straight towards us.
Then the beam of the torch swung upward and I saw the face of the second man. It was in profile as the first one, who was much shorter, indicated the tank behind which we were hiding. ‘You see, they have two-pounders like the ones on deck,’ said the little man. ‘We can test down here.’
In the instant that I had recognised the big man to whom the words were addressed, Freya had let go of my hand and rushed forward. ‘Franzie!’ she cried, and flung herself into the arms of the smaller of the two men.
‘Quite a gathering of the clans,’ I said, as I stepped forward. The torch was shone on my face. Then Schmidt put Freya to one side and took my hand. ‘It’s you, Kilmartin, is it?’ he said, and I had a feeling he was going to embrace me. But he restrained himself and said quietly, ‘I was so afraid they had got you.’
‘Andrew has been chased through the sewers,’ Freya explained in a rush of words. ‘Then he got on board as a pressman and has just rescued me from an empty munition case in which they’d imprisoned me. All wonderfully melodramatic. But how did you get down here? Only a little while ago Sedel told me that he knew you were on board.’
Schmidt took off his glasses and polished them vigorously. His big eyes were brilliant in the torchlight. ‘There are certain advantages in being employed in the galley. The volunteers mess together. They are all sound asleep now. So, I fancy, are Sedel and his chief of staff. I took them coffee after they had returned from visiting Freya.’
‘He’s an absolute wizard,’ David said. ‘Drugged the lot of them. Then he came and let me out of the chain locker in which they’d imprisoned me. Now we take control of the ship.’
‘You go too fast, Mr Shiel,’ put in Schmidt. ‘We can only make our preparations to take over the ship. We can go to our action stations, but we cannot go into action until we have dropped our escort.’
‘But with those pseudo-volunteers all unconscious it would be so easy,’ David insisted. ‘Just tie them up, take their guns and have the ship turned back.’
‘You seem to have forgotten our escort,’ Schmidt said quietly. ‘My dear Mr Shiel, we cannot show our hands until they have shown theirs. That is, of course, unless Mr Kilmartin can assure me that the British Government is by now convinced that this ship is bound for Germany.’ He turned to me. ‘You have made attempts to convince the authorities, yes?’
I nodded. ‘Frankly, I am not very hopeful,’ I said.
He put his glasses on again. ‘Then my plan is best,’ he said. ‘We must give them the rope necessary to hang themselves. They will wake up in the morning to find everything just as it was the night before, except that myself and the two prisoners will have disappeared. I doubt whether they will have time to make a thorough search of the ship, for it will be getting late by then. They will say good-bye to their escort and, when she has passed out of sight, they will go through with their plan to take control of the ship. The course will be set for Germany.’
‘And where are we?’ asked Freya.
‘Inside one of the tanks on the deck. Here’ — he waved his hand round the hold — ‘we have ammunition of several kinds. Ammunition for the machine-guns. Ammunition for these two-pounders. We take a stock of ammunition up to our tank and then we have command of the ship.’ He looked at me. ‘You agree?’ he asked.
I nodded. It really seemed most ingenious. ‘It’s essential that they show their hand first,’ I said. ‘It will be clear proof and that’s the only way to convince the British Government.’
‘Good! Then let us get to work.’
Schmidt had done his reconnaissance work well. He could distinguish the markings on the cases, and with the aid of tools from one of the tanks we soon had a case of machine-gun and a case of two-pounder ammunition opened. The cases were bound with light metal bands and these David broke by inserting a large screwdriver and twisting. At one moment, whilst we were standing by watching him break open a case, Schmidt took my arm. ‘I am overjoyed to find you here,’ he said. ‘I cannot thank you enough.’
I laughed. ‘I should thank you,’ I said. ‘You have given me back my youth.’ My eyes were fixed on Freya. She looked tired, but that did not mar the beauty of her features. She was watching David with his broad powerful shoulders bent to the task of breaking the metal bands.
When both cases were open, Schmidt took us over to the nearest tank and we climbed in. Briefly he explained to the three of us the workings of the machine-gun and the two-pounder. As soon as he was satisfied that we knew how to work both guns in an emergency, we climbed out again and set about the task of removing the necessary quantity of ammunition on deck. David had brought two sacks with him and into each of these we dropped as much as one man could carry. Schmidt and I were to do the donkey work. David was to act as escort and effectively silence any opposition, if we were unlucky enough to meet any. It must be remembered that, though the volunteers were presumably all drugged, the crew were still awake. ‘There’s a watch on the bridge,’ Schmidt told us, as we began to climb the ladder. ‘But he should be looking in front of him.’
David led the way, with myself, then Schmidt, and Freya bringing up the rear. The trapdoor was pushed quietly back, making a square of white light. I followed David on to the fo’c’sle to find the whole ship bathed in brilliant moonlight. Involuntarily I paused. It was a wonderful sight after the darkness of the hold. The moon was almost full and hung low over the sea, so that a path of dancing light showed to the horizon. And in the midst of that silver path was the black outline of our escort. The Thirlmere herself was brilliantly lit, every object clear-cut and accentuated by the darkness of the shadow it cast. Beside the open trapdoor one of the volunteers lay dozing. It was bitterly cold after the warmth of the hold.
No one was in sight and David led the way quickly to the well deck, where we were at once swallowed up in the shadow of the high bulwarks. Schmidt had chosen one of the central tanks next to the torpedo boat. His choice, I discovered later, had been governed by its field of fire, which was excellent. It was so placed that from it we could rake the whole of the fo’c’sle and cover one entrance to the hold.