It was 10 p.m and it was dark as pitch and there was a high wind beating up the bay as the westerlies swept in, circling and eddying north from the storm-tossed Horn. Shaw was listening with a fast-beating heart to the footfalls of the sentry marching up and down above his head when he heard another sound: the whine of machinery bringing up the helicopter on its platform. He could feel the shudder running through the ship as the platform slotted home, and a few minutes after that he heard the agreed signal from Lindrath — a double thump on the deck above. Shortly after that two pairs of feet walked away above him and did not return.
Good enough!
Shaw removed his jacket and took off his shoes, tying the latter together by their laces and slinging them around his neck. Then he climbed up on to the bunk and swung the heavy glass of the port inward, fastening it back to the big hook hanging from the deckhead above. A cold wind beat in, whining threateningly. He sat on the bunk with his back to the ship’s side, then reached backward and upward, hooking his fingers firmly round the brass rim of the porthole itself.
He heaved.
Once his head was through the port and into that biting wind he reached higher still, reached to the fullest extent of his arms. He was just able to hook his fingers over the lip of the old British ship’s quarterdeck and get a good enough grip to give himself some pull. Letting go all his breath in a long exhalation, and holding his chest as flat as possible, he heaved and squirmed, thrusting out with his feet on the bunk. He felt his shirt rip on the brass-work of the scuttle, felt the searing pain of grazes and the warm run of blood spreading across his shoulders and ribs. There was a drumming in his ears, and sweat poured off him even in that ice-laden wind that was blowing across to kick up the dark water beneath him so that every now and again a cold douche of spray swept his head. He was conscious of the noise of the helicopter starting up now, but he paid little attention to that. Everything he had, every part of his being, was concentrated in squeezing his protesting body through the close confines of that port.
He felt that he could never make it.
He seemed wedged, jammed solid. He stopped his efforts for a moment to take a breath, and as he did so he felt himself swelling in the aperture, swelling painfully against the unresistant metal till he thought that his ribs must surely crack and splinter into his lungs. Looking aft he could see, faintly, two figures right in the stern of the ship. They were beyond the superstructure, which rose up some three feet inboard of the guardrail above where he was held in the port’s grip. The sentry had his back to Shaw, Lindrath had done his stuff well, but it was now or never; the sentry couldn’t be kept talking all night… Shaw flattened himself again, drawing the outboard part of his body farther and farther over the sea, elongating himself so that he felt as if he were on a rack in some torture-chamber of the Middle Ages, or as if he were a worm being drawn from a hole in a lawn by the clutching beak of a predatory blackbird. The pain was intense. A little longer and he felt his ribs come scraping through — only for his hip-bones to stick fast.
He clenched his teeth and dragged. Dragged and pulled with all his strength, squirming, wriggling, heaving, pushing with his feet still… and then, as inches of skin peeled off his hips, he was through, with the undersides of his knees resting on the porthole’s rim.
He gave a gasp of relief and closed his eyes in an effort to relax. Opening them again only seconds later, he looked aft along the deck. Lindrath was still engaging the sentry, his voice sharp and angry. Shaw grinned into the darkness. The old man was playing up beautifully; that sentry was getting hell for some omission of duty, real or dreamed up for the occasion. Shaw pulled his body clear of the port and got one foot into the aperture to give himself a breather, his arm hooked over one of the guardrail stanchions. When he was recovered enough he let go of the stanchion and edged along, hand crossing hand on the deck’s edge above his head, keeping out of sight from the deck itself, moving for’ard slowly until he was suspended over Patricia’s cabin.
Letting go with one hand, he swung down and tapped urgently on the darkened glass — darkened, because the deadlight was secured in place. Nothing happened. He tapped and went on tapping and after an agony of waiting and hanging on in that cold, eerily whining wind which whipped and tore at his body, a period of waiting in which he felt he must be torn away to drop to the dark, hostile sea below him, he heard the sound of the deadlight being unfastened. A crescent of light stole out. As the crescent became a circle he could see the girl’s scared face peeping through at him.
He tapped again and smiled encouragingly through the glass. Suddenly she seemed to recognize him through that heavy glass and her face was at once transformed. Tremblingly she opened the port and swung it up.
She said in a kind of stunned amazement, ‘Commander Shaw… why, what are—’
‘Listen,’ he whispered, seized with impatience now. ‘We didn’t want to tell you earlier… just in case of accidents. Hook that glass up and listen.’ She hooked the glass back. ‘We’re getting out of here by helicopter. Lindrath’s fixing things… I want you to be ready to climb out through the port when I get back here. If I could do it — just — you can do it easily. Plenty of room. I’ll be up top to take you and pull you up. Nothing to worry about.’
She asked fearfully, her face still scared and white, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Deal with the sentry first,’ he whispered. ‘The one on deck, I mean. The alleyway sentry doesn’t matter. Then I’ll be right back for you. Two bangs on the deck above — that’ll be me. Everything’s planned. Just hold tight and wait, Patricia.’
He grinned at her, then heaved his body upward again with his fingers on the edge of the deck until he was able to get a hand on the guardrail once more. He hung there for a moment getting another breath and listening for any sound from above. There was nothing that he could distinguish beyond the steady racket from the waiting helicopter, and the high, shrieking howl of the wind cutting across the distant rocky crags. It couldn’t be better; the sentry would never hear a thing, would never know what had hit him so long as Lindrath kept him engaged. Shaw pulled himself up to a crouching position, still on the outboard side of the rail, and then stood up and got his legs across.
A moment later he was standing on the darkened deck.
Quick as light, and dead silent without his shoes, Shaw moved down the deck, keeping in the lee of the superstructure for as long as he could. Then, coming clear of cover, he went on at the rush. The man must have heard a sound for he began to turn away from Lindrath, but Shaw was much too fast for him. He was right on him now and in a flash his right hand came up, came up and struck hard, viciously, slicing down with wicked force across a spot in the base of the man’s neck. The German slumped soundlessly, and Shaw caught him as he fell and grabbed for the sub-machine-gun which the man carried slung across his shoulder. It was all over in a moment. Breathing hard, Shaw looked into Lindrath’s face. It was more heavily lined than ever, and weary… the old man hadn’t liked this part and Shaw didn’t really blame him. Lindrath said quietly, ‘I am sorry it had to be like this, but…’ he shrugged.
‘It was him or a few million others,’ Shaw said briefly. ‘That’s the way to see it.’
‘He is dead?’
‘Very.’ He let the body slump to the deck, where it lay in a still heap at his feet, the head lolling. ‘All ready, Captain?’
Lindrath nodded. ‘The helicopter pilot is expecting to go into Rio Grande for some urgent spares… I have reported to Herr Fleck that the echo-sounder will not work and there is a broken part — which is true, for I broke it myself. We must have the echo-sounder, of course, if we wish to move from here — at least, I am well able to persuade Herr Fleck that it is essential! However,’ he added, ‘this is what I was meaning to say: The pilot will not take off until I speak to him personally. Those are my orders to him. If you happen to get there first…’ he smiled a little sadly. ‘You know what you have to do. Good luck, Commander.’