‘Yes, I remember. You told me when you were here in the spring.’
‘Did I?’ He took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Did I tell you anything else?’
‘What else?’
‘That I loved you.’
‘No. You never do. I have to guess it.’
He dropped his voice. ‘Anything interesting, Inga?’
She looked through the window into the street. ‘Yes. I’ve made copies for you. You must destroy them afterwards.’
‘Of course. I always do.’
She unlocked a drawer in the counter, took several message sheets from it and passed them to him. She sighed. ‘It’s terrible that I do this. Wish I didn’t love you.’
He glanced briefly at the messages before thrusting them into his pocket. ‘I know. It’s marvellous of you. But it does no harm and it helps me so much in my press work.’ He was preoccupied, thinking about something. ‘That telegram for my office, Inga. Can you let me see it again. I think I want to amend it.’
She gave it to him. Before Daffodil Y and the time of dispatch he wrote, Expect more positive news within twenty-four hours. When he handed it back she read it, looked at him curiously. ‘Funny man,’ she said, shaking her head.
Over Olufsen’s shoulder, she saw a face staring at them through the glass panel of the door. It was Gustav Kroll. He swung the door open and came into the office. ‘Good morning, Mr Olufsen.’ His smile exuded warmth and geniality. ‘Hope I’m not intruding. I’ve come for some stamps.’ The relationship between Olufsen and Inga Bodde was no secret on the island.
In his room in the hospits Olufsen re-read the message sheets before burning them. One was the Ornithological Society’s telegram to Plotz and Ferret about visiting Rost, another a telegram from the Ordforer to the county governor in Bodo summarizing Milovych’s non-committal salvage reports.
The Ordforer’s reports to the county governor were a formality. He knew that Martinsen’s daily dispatch by sealed airbag to Military HQ in Bodo gave considerably more information, for the major received reports twice daily from the naval vessels on patrol and the soldiers on the cliffs.
A third message was from the US Consulate-General in Bodo informing the Ordforer that a helicopter of the United States Oceanographic Service would be landing in Kolhamn at 1800 that day. It was engaged on an oceanographic survey in conjunction with the Norwegian authorities.
The fourth and final message was from Military GHQ Oslo informing the Ordforer that a Soviet ocean-going salvage tug with two ‘camels’ in tow would be arriving off Knausnes within forty-eight hours.
In the kafeteria that night Gunnar Olufsen stopped for a moment at the table where Nunn and Julie were sitting. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘How are things?’
‘We’re tired of waiting,’ said Nunn.
‘All for a titchy spare part,’ said Julie. ‘Our holiday’s coming apart at the seams. It’s traumatic.’
Olufsen’s sympathetic eyes widened. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s unusual for a boat hired from Halvorsen Brothers to give trouble. These things happen with the best of engines.’
‘I’m not blaming you,’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault.’
He smiled and she felt strangely drawn to him in spite of the gulf of years. In the short time she’d known this man, his eyes, the warmth and kindness they conveyed, were like a caress.
Then, as if there’d never been a smile, the line of his mouth tightened. ‘Well. By tomorrow you’ll know the land of the midnight sun.’ His eyes held theirs for a moment before he said, ‘Bye now.’
When he’d gone Nunn said, ‘So it’s tomorrow night.’
Julie shivered. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I heard.’
It was dark down in the harbour where the Kestrel lay. The single lamp on the warehouse shone dimly through the pall of rain, its light barely reaching the outer edge of the wooden quay. The night was quiet and still but for the lap of water against the ketch’s hull and the chug-chug of a distant diesel as Gunnar Olufsen went down the ladder on to the ketch and made his way through the cockpit to the saloon.
‘You’re punctual,’ said Nunn looking at his watch.
Olufsen frowned. If he’d stayed in the Royal Navy he might well have reached flag-rank by now. Of course he was punctual. His training, his conditioning, his life were based upon punctuality. It could mean the difference between success and failure, sometimes between life and death. Was this young lieutenant-commander trying to patronize him? Olufsen ignored the remark. ‘Mind if I sit down?’ He did so without waiting for Nunn’s, ‘Sorry. Of course.’
In a manner which was disconcerting to strangers but very much a part of the man, Olufsen looked in silence at the faces round the table. After a pause long enough to be embarrassing he said, ‘Hullo,’ and put on the table the parcel he’d collected from the post office that afternoon. ‘The spare part,’ he said.
Sandstrom took it. ‘Now we’ve got two.’
Olufsen said, ‘How long to re-assemble that fuel injector?’
‘An hour at most.’
‘Good. Work on it tomorrow.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I mean today. It’s ten minutes past midnight. Make a start in the forenoon. Take your time. Encounter problems. Appear not to have completed the job when darkness falls. In fact, be sure you have finished. That engine must be a hundred per cent long before that.’
‘I will.’ Sandstrom was about to say ‘sir’ but checked himself in time.
Olufsen looked at each of them in turn. ‘I know it’s been boring… and worrying… for you. This waiting. It’s nearly over.’ He smiled and once again Julie, feeling the magic of his eyes, wondered about him. How and why he’d come to be where he was.
His mood changed suddenly and it seemed to her as if a cloud had drifted across the sun. ‘We execute Daisy Chain in about twenty-four hours.’ He leant forward. ‘Now listen carefully. This is the final briefing. It outlines what each of you has to do. When I’ve finished I want your suggestions.’ It was close to three in the morning when he left the Kestrel and climbed back on to the quay. He stood there for a moment, pulling up the collar of his raincoat before making his way between the sheds to the road which led to the village.
After he’d gone a dark shape emerged from the pile of fishing nets and buoys which lay against the warehouse. As the shape moved towards the light cast by the solitary lamp it resolved itself into a man in oilskins. He stopped, looked up and down the quay, listened intently, then disappeared round the corner of the shed.
When he was well down the road which led to the village he took off his tweed hat, produced a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead. It was sweat more than rain which worried Gustav Kroll for he perspired freely at the best of times and the oilskins had trapped the heat of his ample body.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The divers from the Nepa salvage ships stopped external work on the Zhukov’s hull with the end of daylight, but inside the submarine patching and reinforcing of welding fractures continued throughout the night. The purpose of these was to reduce hull leaks to manageable proportions as quickly as possible. With the aid of the ‘camels’, due the next day, it was hoped that flotation would be accomplished within the ensuing forty-eight hours when spring tides were at their zenith. Damage to the forward torpedo-compartment being too extensive to tackle in the time available, the salvage experts had planned other means of achieving positive buoyancy forward.