A Twist Of Sand

An old submariner himself, the Flag Officer (S) did not waste his words — or his time. The Admiralty looked bleak and cold in the late London spring; chill it seemed to me after being used to the friendly bite of the Mediterranean sun. Bleaker still looked those eyes over the top of the desk. They reminded me somehow of Rockall, the lonely isle in the Atlantic — they only changed their shade of greyness, sometime* stormy, sometimes still, but always grey and bleak with the chill of the near Arctic.

I did not reply. The sudden transition by air from one place to another has always left me feeling as if a part of me had been left behind; it requires time to catch up again.

"Are you tired, Peace?" the level voice snapped. Dear God! Was I tired of people telling me I was tired! First at Malta, where I had been fussed over — sleep and rest. And now the Flag Officer (S) himself. Something inside me tightened.

"Of course I'm tired," I replied savagely. "I sank a battleship and had God knows how many depth-charges dropped on me for God knows how many hours. I come straight off patrol and I fly for God knows how many hours in a cold uncomfortable plane with everyone swaddling me in cottonwool. I am tired, but I can be a damn sight tireder. If you had hidden behind a shelf of sand for nine hours…"

The hard look which struck terror into the hearts of so many, and my own now when I realised the folly of such an outburst, changed to one of surprise and the Arctic eyes became slightly less grey.

"What's that?" he whipped out. "What's this about a shelf of sand? There's nothing in the report."

"They probably didn't consider it worthwhile burdening the air with so much detail," I replied. "It was this way, sir…" I told him about Trout's long ordeal and how I had chosen the undulation on the sea-bed as my protection. I must admit I made it longer than I normally would have done, but while I kept talking I felt he might overlook my nervous outburst.

When I had finished, he said quietly: "I owe you an apology, Peace. When I saw you there I thought I was seeing what I have seen so many times: a fine officer, but his battle reflexes shot to hell. I had three submarine commanders on my list for this job, and it was the battleship that tipped the scales in your favour. A moment ago I had doubts. Now I am ordering you to do it." He smiled slightly. As a once a brilliant submarine commander in World War I, he still knew that you can only push a submarine commander so far and then — the enemy gets him.

He leaned back in his leather chair.

"Three men know about this thing. I will tell you who they are: Myself, the Director of Naval Intelligence, now you. One other man knew, but he is dead. The Gestapo saw to that. I tell you that the fate of the whole war at sea depends — and I do not say may depend, but depends — on the success or otherwise of the mission I have for you."

He pressed a button and lapsed into silence, but the cold eyes watched me, probing, mesmerising, seeking out the hidden weakness of the instrument he had chosen.

"Show in the Director of Naval Intelligence," he said.

I got to my feet as the grave, sad-eyed man came in.

"Hallo, Peter," he said. He spoke like a world-weary diplomat. He seemed to have reached a stage beyond sadness at human ferocity and had only compassion left. He looked at me. "So this is your man?" It was a different type of scrutiny, a subtle, diagnostic friendliness, but not less deadly than the scalpel-like probing of the Flag Officer (S).

"Tell him," he said curtly.

The newcomer sat on the edge of the desk with one leg swinging idle. He lit a cigarette and gazed for a moment at the cold view beyond the windows, as if mustering his thoughts.

"You will see," he said didactically, "that I have no papers with me. There are no papers. All I have is a message sent by our agent at the Blohm and Voss yards. It was a longish message, and that is probably why they caught him. His Majesty's Government will never have the opportunity of rewarding him." He said it without a trace of irony, but rather with pity. It might have been an epitaph for a Spartan.

"You may guess," he went on, "although you may not know, that the Germans have been working on forms of submarine propulsion other than conventional methods for some time."

I shook my head.

"You've been too busy sinking things to keep upto date," he murmured reprovingly. "What would say were your two main problems in a submarine? You, as a practical exponent of the art?"

The schoolmasterly chiding held no hint of the venomous subject it treated: slow coughing to death in a steel coffin in fifty fathoms of water; no hint of our excruciating passion for more speed to evade the hunter.

"Fresh air and speed," I replied.

"May I congratulate you on your man, Peter? I suppose a submarine commander doesn't have much time to waste his words."