Storm Warning

‘Uisgebeatha?’ Murdoch said in Gaelic. ‘The water of life. Why not indeed, for it is life you need this morning, I am thinking.’ He smiled gravely. ‘I’ll be ten minutes. Time for you to take a turn along the shore with the hound to blow the cobwebs away.’

The mouth of the inlet was a maelstrom of white water, waves smashing in across the reef beyond with a thunderous roaring, hurling spray a hundred feet into the air.

Reeve trudged along in the wolfhound’s wake at the water’s edge, thinking about Murdoch Macleod. Thirty-two years coxswain of the Fhada lifeboat, legend in his own time – during which he had been awarded the BEM by old King George and five silver and two gold medals for gallantry in sea rescue by the Lifeboat Institution. He had retired in 1938, when his son Donald had taken over as coxswain in his place, and had returned a year later when Donald was called to active service with the Royal Naval Reserve. A remarkable man by any standards.

The wolfhound was barking furiously. Reeve looked up across the great bank of sand that was known as Traig Mhoire – Mary’s Strand. A man in a yellow lifejacket lay face-down on the shore twenty yards away, water slopping over him as one wave crashed in after another.

The admiral ran forward, dropped to one knee and turned him over, with some difficulty for his left arm was virtually useless now. He was quite dead, a boy of eighteen or nineteen, in denim overalls, eyes closed as if in sleep, fair hair plastered to his skull, not a mark on him.

Reeve started to search the body. There was a leather wallet in the left breast pocket. As he opened it, Murdoch arrived on the run, dropping on his knees beside him.

‘Came to see what was keeping you.’ He touched the pale face with the back of his hand.

‘How long?’ Reeve asked.

‘Ten or twelve hours, no more. Who was he?’

‘Off a German U-boat from the look of those overalls.’ Reeve opened the wallet and examined the contents. There was a photo of a young girl, a couple of letters and a leave pass so soaked in sea water that it started to fall to pieces as he opened it gingerly.

‘A wee lad, that’s all,’ Murdoch said. ‘Couldn’t they do better than schoolboys?’

‘Probably as short of men by now as the rest of us,’ Reeve told him. ‘His name was Hans Bleichrodt and he celebrated his eighteenth birthday while on leave in Brunswick three weeks ago. He was Funkgefreiter, telegraphist to you, on U743.’ He replaced the papers in the wallet. ‘If she bought it this morning, we might get more like this coming in for the rest of the week.’

‘You could be right,’ Murdoch crouched down and, with an easy strength that never ceased to amaze Reeve, hoisted the body over one shoulder. ‘Better get him into Mary’s Town then, Admiral.’

Reeve nodded. ‘Yes, my house will do. Mrs Sinclair can see him this afternoon and sign the death certificate. We’ll bury him tomorrow.’

‘I am thinking that the kirk might be more fitting.’

‘I’m not certain that’s such a good idea,’ Reeve said. ‘There are eleven men from this island dead at sea owing to enemy action during this war. I would have thought their families might not be too happy to see a German lying in state in their own place of worship.’

The old man’s eyes were fierce. ‘And you would agree with them?’

‘Oh no,’ Reeve said hurriedly. ‘Don’t draw me into this. You put the boy where you like. I don’t think it will bother him too much.’

‘But it might well bother God,’ Murdoch said gently. There was no reproof in his voice, in spite of the fact that, as a certificated lay preacher of the Church of Scotland, he was the nearest thing to a minister on the island.

There was no road from that end of Fhada, had never been any need for one, but during the two abortive years that the Marconi station had existed, the telegraph company had laid the narrow-gauge railway line. The lifeboat crew, mostly fishermen from Mary’s Town, travelled on it by trolley when called out in an emergency, pumping it by hand or hoisting a sail when the wind was favourable.

Which it was that morning, and Murdoch and the admiral coasted along at a brisk five knots, the triangular strip of canvas billowing out to one side. The dead boy lay in the centre of the trolley and Rory squatted beside him.

Two miles, then three, and the track started to slope down and the wind tore a hole in the curtain of rain, revealing Mary’s Town, a couple of miles further on in the north-west corner of the island, a scattering of granite houses, four or five streets sloping to the harbour. There were half-a-dozen fishing boats anchored in the lee of the breakwater.

Murdoch was standing, one hand on the mast, staring out to sea. ‘Would you look at that now, Admiral? There’s some sort of craft coming in towards the harbour out there and I could have sworn that was the Stars and Stripes she’s flying. I must be getting old.’

Reeve had the telescope out of his pocket and focused in an instant. ‘You’re damned right it is,’ he said as the Dead End jumped into view, Harry Jago on the bridge.

His hand was shaking with excitement as he pushed the telescope back into his pocket. ‘You know something, Murdoch? This might just turn out to be my day after all.’

When the MGB eased into the landing-stage a woman was sitting on the upper jetty under an umbrella, painting at an easel. She was in her early forties, with calm blue eyes in a strong and pleasant face. She wore a headscarf, an old naval-officer’s coat, which carried the bars of a full captain on the epaulettes, and slacks.

She stood up, moved to the edge of the jetty, holding the umbrella, and smiled down. ‘Hello there, America. That makes a change.’

Jago went over the rail and up the steps to the jetty quickly. ‘Harry Jago, ma’am.’

‘Jean Sinclair.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m bailie here, Lieutenant, so if there’s anything I can do …’

‘Bailie?’ Jago said blankly.

‘What you’d call a magistrate.’

Jago grinned. ‘I see. You mean you’re the law around here.’

‘And coroner and harbourmaster. This is a small island. We have to do the best we can.’

‘I’m here with dispatches for Rear Admiral Reeve, ma’am. Have you any idea where I might locate him?’

She smiled. ‘We have a saying in these islands, Lieutenant. Speak of the devil and you’ll find he’s right behind you.’

Jago turned quickly and got a shock. When he’d received his Navy Cross from Nimitz at Pearl, Admiral Reeve had been one of those on the platform, resplendent in full uniform with three rows of medal ribbons. There was no echo of him at all in the small, dark man with the black eye patch who hurried towards him now wearing an old reefer coat and sea boots. It was only when he spoke that Jago knew beyond a doubt who he was.

‘You looking for me, Lieutenant?’

‘Admiral Reeve?’ Jago got his heels together and saluted. ‘I’ve got a dispatch for you, sir. Handed to me by the Royal Naval officer in command at Mallaig. If you’d care to come aboard.’

‘Lead me to it, Lieutenant,’ the admiral said eagerly, then paused and turned to Jean Sinclair. ‘I found Rory. He was with Murdoch at the lifeboat station.’

Her eyes were lively now and there was a slight amused smile on her mouth. ‘Why, Carey, I thought you were going to ignore me altogether.’

He said gravely, ‘I found something else down there on Traig Mhoire. A body on the beach. A German boy off a U-boat.’

Her smile died. ‘Where is he now?’

‘I left him at the church with Murdoch.’

‘I’d better get up there then. I’ll pick up a couple of women on the way. See the lad’s decently laid out.’

‘I’ll be along myself later.’

She walked away quickly, her umbrella tilted to take the force of the rain. ‘Quite a lady,’ Jago remarked.

The admiral nodded. ‘And then some. As a matter of interest, she owns the whole damned island. Left it by her father. He was a kind of feudal laird round here.’

‘What about that naval greatcoat, sir?’ Jago asked, as they descended the ladder.

‘Her husband’s. Went down in the Prince of Wales back in forty-one. He was a Sinclair, too, like her. A second cousin, I believe.’ He laughed. ‘It’s an old island custom to keep the name in the family.’

The crew were assembled on deck and as the admiral went over the rail, Jansen piped him on board. Reeve looked them over in amazement and said to Jago, ‘Where did this lot spring from? A banana boat?’

‘Chief Petty Officer Jansen, sir,’ Jago said weakly.

Reeve examined Jansen, taking in the reefer, the tangled beard and knitted cap. He turned away with a shudder. ‘I’ve seen enough. Just take me to my dispatch, will you?’

‘If you follow me, Admiral.’

Jago led the way down the companionway to his cabin. He took a briefcase from under the mattress on his bunk, unlocked it and produced a buff envelope, seals still intact, which he passed across. As Reeve took it from him, there was a knock at the door and Jansen entered with a tray.

‘Coffee, gentlemen?’

Reeve curbed the impulse to tear the envelope open and said to Jago as he accepted a cup, ‘How’s the war going, then?’

It was Jansen who answered. ‘The undertakers are doing well, Admiral.’

Reeve turned to stare at him in a kind of fascination. ‘You did say Chief Petty Officer?’

‘The best, sir,’ Jago said gamely.

‘And where may I ask, did you find him?’

‘Harvard, sir,’ Jansen said politely, and withdrew.

Reeve said in wonderment, ‘He’s joking, isn’t he?’

‘I’m afraid not, Admiral.’

‘No wonder the war wasn’t over by Christmas.’

Reeve sat on the edge of the bunk, tore open the package and took out two envelopes. He opened the smaller first. There was a photo inside and a letter which he read quickly, a smile on his face. He passed the photo to Jago.

‘My niece, Janet. She’s a doctor at Guy’s Hospital in London. Been there since nineteen-forty. Worked right through the blitz.’

She had grave, steady eyes, high cheekbones, a mouth that was too wide. There was something in her expression that got through to Jago.

He handed the photo back reluctantly. ‘Very nice, sir.’

‘You could say that and it would be the understatement of the year.’

Reeve opened the second envelope and started to read the letter it contained eagerly. Gradually the smile died on his face, his eyes grew dark, his mouth tightened. He folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket.

‘Bad news, sir?’

‘Now that, son, depends entirely on your point of view. The powers-that-be are of the opinion that the war can get on without me. That, to use a favourite phrase of our British allies, I’ve done my bit.’

Jago opened a cupboard behind him and took out a bottle of Scotch and a glass which he held out to the admiral. ‘Most people I know wouldn’t find much to quarrel with in that sentiment, sir.’

He poured a generous measure of whisky into the glass. Reeve said, ‘Something else that’s strictly against regulations, Lieutenant.’ He frowned. ‘What is your name, anyway?’

‘Jago, sir. Harry Jago.’

Reeve swallowed some of the whisky. ‘What kind of deal are you on here? This old tub looks as if it might be left over from the Crimea.’

‘Not quite, sir. Courtesy of the Royal Navy. We’re only playing postman, you see. I suppose they didn’t think the job was worth much more.’

‘What were you doing before?’

‘PT boats, sir. Squadron Two, working the Channel.’

‘Jago?’ Reeve said and his face brightened. ‘You lost an Elco in Lyme Bay.’

‘I suppose you could put it that way, sir.’

Reeve smiled and held out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you, son. And those boys up top? They’re your original crew?’

‘What’s left of them.’

‘Well, now I’m here, you might as well show me over this pig boat.’

Which Jago did from stem to stern. They ended up in the wheelhouse, where they found Jansen at the chart table.

‘And what might you be about?’ Reeve demanded.

‘Our next stop is a weather station on the south-west corner of Harris, Admiral. I was just plotting our course.’

‘Show me.’ Jansen ran a finger out through the Sound into the Atlantic and Reeve said, ‘Watch it out there, especially if visibility is reduced in the slightest. Here, three miles to the north-west.’ He tapped the chart. ‘Washington Reef. Doesn’t it make you feel at home, the sound of that name?’

‘And presumably it shouldn’t?’ Jago asked.

‘A death trap. The greatest single hazard to shipping on the entire west coast of Scotland. Two galleons from the Spanish Armada went to hell together on those rocks four hundred years ago and they’ve been tearing ships apart ever since. One of the main reasons there’s a lifeboat here on Fhada.’

‘Maybe we’d be better taking the other route north through the Little Minch, sir.’

Reeve smiled. ‘I know – it’s a hell of a war, Lieutenant, but it’s the only one we’ve got.’

Jansen said solemnly, ‘As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascination. When looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. Oscar Wilde said that, sir,’ he said helpfully.

‘Dear God, restore me to sanity.’ Reeve shook his head and turned to Jago. ‘Let me get off this hooker before I go over the edge entirely.’

‘Just one thing, sir. Do you know a Mr Murdoch Macleod?’

‘He’s coxswain of the lifeboat here and a good friend of mine. Why do you ask?’

Jago unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out an orange envelope. ‘The Royal Naval officer in command at Mallaig asked me to deliver this telegram to him, sir, there being no telephone or telegraph service to the island at the moment, I understand.’

‘That’s right,’ Reeve said. ‘The cable parted in a storm last month and they haven’t got around to doing anything about it yet. In fact at the moment, the island’s only link with the outside world is my personal radio.’

He held out his hand for the envelope which he saw was open. ‘It’s from the Admiralty, sir.’

‘Bad news?’

‘He has a son, sir. Lieutenant Donald Macleod.’

‘That’s right. Commanding an armed trawler doing escort duty on east-coast convoys in the North Sea. Newcastle to London.’

‘Torpedoed off the Humber yesterday, with all hands.’

Reeve’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘No one was saved at all? You’re certain of that?’

‘I’m afraid not, Admiral.’

Reeve seemed to age before his eyes. ‘One thing they obviously didn’t tell you, Lieutenant, was that, although Donald Macleod was master of that trawler, there were four other men from Fhada in the crew.’ He passed the envelope back to Jago. ‘I think the sooner we get this over with, the better.’

The church of St Mungo was a tiny, weather-beaten building with a squat tower, constructed of blocks of heavy granite on a hillside above the town.

Reeve, Jago and Frank Jansen went in through the lychgate and followed a path through a churchyard scattered with gravestones to the porch at the west end. Reeve opened the massive oaken door and led the way in.

The dead boy lay on a trestle table in a tiny side chapel to one side of the altar. Two middle-aged women were arranging the body while Murdoch and Jean Sinclair stood close by, talking in subdued tones. They turned and looked down the aisle as the door opened. The three men moved towards them, caps in hand. They paused, then Reeve held the orange envelope out to Jean Sinclair.

‘I think you’d better read this.’

She took it from him, extracted the telegram. Her face turned ashen, she was wordless. In a moment of insight, Reeve realized that she was re-living her own tragedy. She turned to Murdoch, but the admiral stepped in quickly, holding her back.

Murdoch said calmly, ‘It is bad news you have for me there, I am thinking, Carey Reeve.’

‘Donald’s ship was torpedoed off the Humber yesterday,’ Reeve said. ‘Went down with all hands.’

A tremor seemed to pass through the old man’s entire frame. He staggered momentarily, then took a deep breath and straightened. ‘The Lord disposes.’

The two women working on the body stopped to stare at him, faces frozen in horror. Between them, as Reeve well knew, they had just lost a husband and brother. Murdoch moved past and stood looking down at the German boy, pale in death, the face somehow very peaceful now.

He reached down and took one of the cold hands in his. ‘Poor lad,’ he said. ‘Poor wee lad!’ His shoulders shook and he started to weep softly.

3

Barquentine Deutschland, 12 September 1944. Lat. 26°.11N., long. 30°.26W. Wind NW 2–3. Overcast. Poor visibility. A bad squall last night during the middle-watch and the flying-jib split.

Some five hundred miles south of the Azores, Erich Berger sat at the desk in his cabin entering his personal journal

… our general progress has, of course, been far better than I could ever have hoped and yet our passengers find the experience tedious in the extreme. For most of the time, bad weather keeps them below; the skylight leaks and the saloon is constantly damp.

The loss of the chickens and two goats kept for milk, all swept overboard in a bad squall three days out of Belém, has had an unfortunate effect on our diet, although here again, it has been most noticeable in the nuns. Frau Prager is still my main worry and her condition, as far as I may judge, continues to deteriorate.

As for the prospect of a meeting with an enemy ship, we are as ready in that respect as can reasonably be expected. The Deutschland is now the Gudrid Andersen to the last detail, including the library of Swedish books in my cabin. The plan of campaign, if boarded at any time, is simple. The additional men carried beyond normal crew requirements will secrete themselves in the bilges. A simple device admittedly, and one easily discovered by any kind of a thorough search, but we have little choice in the matter.

The Deutschland stands up well so far to all the Atlantic can offer, although there is not a day passes that shrouds do not part or sails split and, this morning, Mister Sturm reported twelve inches of water in the bilges. But, as yet, there is no cause for alarm. We all get old and the Deutschland is older than most …

The whole ship lurched drunkenly and Berger was thrown from his chair as the cabin tilted. He scrambled to his feet, got the door open and ran out on deck.

The Deutschland was plunging forward through heavy seas, the deck awash with spray. Leutnant Sturm and Leading Seaman Kluth had the wheel between them and it was taking all their strength to hold it.

High above the deck, the main gaff topsail fluttered free in the wind. The noise was tremendous and could be heard even above the roaring of the wind, and the topmast was whipping backwards and forwards. A matter of moments only before it snapped. But already Richter was at the rail, the sea washing over him as he pulled on the downhaul to collapse the sail.

Berger ran to join him, losing his footing and rolling into the scuppers as another great sea floated in across the deck, but somehow he was on his feet and lending his weight to the downhaul with Richter.

The sail came down, the Deutschland righted herself perceptibly, the continual drumming ceased. Richter shouted, ‘I’d better get up there and see to a new outhaul.’

Berger cried above the wind, ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes out there on that gaff in this weather. It’ll have to wait till the wind eases.’

‘But that sail will tear herself to pieces, sir.’

‘A gasket should hold her for the time being. I’ll see to it.’

Berger sprang into the ratlines and started to climb, aware of the wind tearing at his body like some living thing. When he paused, fifty feet up and glanced down, Richter was right behind him.

There was a foot of water in the saloon, a sea having smashed the skylight and flooded in. Sister Angela went from cabin to cabin, doing her best to calm her alarmed companions.

When she went into the Pragers’, she found the old man on his knees at his wife’s bunk. Frau Prager was deathly pale, eyes closed, little sign of life there at all.

‘What is it?’ Otto Prager demanded in alarm.

She ignored him for the moment and took his wife’s pulse. It was still there, however irregular.

Prager tugged at her sleeve. ‘What happened?’

‘I’ll find out,’ she said calmly. ‘You stay with your wife.’

She went out on deck to find the Deutschland racing north, every fore and aft sail drawing well, yards braced as she plunged into the waves. Sturm and Kluth were still at the wheel. The young lieutenant called to her, but his words were snatched away by the wind.

She made it to the mizzen shrouds on the port side, the wind tearing at her black habit, and looked up at the ballooning sails. The sky was a uniform grey, the whole world alive with the sound of the ship, a thousand creaks and groans. And then, a hundred feet up, she saw Berger and Richter swaying backwards and forwards on the end of the gaff as they secured the sail.

It was perhaps the most incredible thing she had ever seen in her life and she was seized by a tremendous feeling of exhilaration. A sea slopped in over the rail in a green curtain that bowled her over, sending her skidding across the deck on her hands and knees.

She crouched against the bulwark and, as she tried to get up, Berger dropped out of the shrouds beside her and got a hand under her arm.

‘Bloody fool!’ he shouted. ‘Why can’t you stay below?’

He ran her across the deck and into his cabin before she had a chance to reply. Sister Angela collapsed into the chair behind the desk and Berger got the door shut and leaned against it. ‘What in the hell am I going to do with you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘There was panic down below. I simply wanted to know what had happened.’

He picked up a towel from his bunk and tossed it across to her. ‘A line parted, a sail broke free. It could have snapped the topmast like a matchstick, only Richter was too quick for it.’ He opened a cupboard and reached for the bottle. ‘A drink, Sister? Purely medicinal, of course. Rum is all I can offer, I’m afraid.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Berger poured himself a large one and she wiped her face and regarded him curiously. ‘It was incredible what you were doing out there. You and Herr Richter, so high up and in such weather.’

‘Not really,’ he said indifferently. ‘Not to anyone who’s reefed main t’gallants on a fully-rigged clipper in a Cape Horn storm.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Tell me, do you still think we’re bad luck? A positive guarantee of contrary winds, wasn’t that what you said at our first meeting? And yet we’ve made good progress, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Oh, we’re making time all right,’ Berger admitted. ‘Although she shakes herself to pieces around us just a little bit more each day.’

‘You speak of her, the Deutschland, as if she is a living thing. As if she has an existence of her own.’

‘I wouldn’t quarrel with that. Although I suppose your Church would. A ship doesn’t have one voice, she has many. You can hear them calling to each other out there, especially at night.’

‘The wind in the rigging?’ There was something close to mockery in her voice.

‘There are other possibilities. Old timers will tell you that the ghost of anyone killed falling from the rigging remains with the ship.’

‘And you believe that?’

‘Obligatory in the Kriegsmarine.’ There was an ironic smile on his face now. ‘Imagine the shades who infest this old girl. Next time something brushes past you in the dark on the companionway, you’ll know what it is. One Our Father and two Hail Marys should keep you safe.’

Her cheeks flushed but before she could reply, the door was flung open and Sister Else appeared, ‘Please, Sister, come quickly. Frau Prager seems to be worse.’