Dagger Magic

"Shit," Scanlan muttered. Though he had not really expected it to open, he still was disappointed. Panting a little from the exertion, he shone his torch around the inside of the conning tower again and noticed something he had missed in his first inspection: an irregular grey packet about the size of his two hands, lashed to the inside of the nearest bulkhead by grey webbing straps.

The straps fell to bits as he tried to loose the buckles. The packet itself was sheathed in a double layer of oilskin, mildewed and brittle with age, that cracked and all but disintegrated as he peeled it back to expose a folded bundle of scarlet material. It was musty and damp, but when Scanlan gingerly shook it out, the mass of red became a German Kriegsmarine flag - red and black and white.

He caught his breath at the sight of it - once-fine scarlet wool boldly ensigned with the distinctive black cross of old Germany behind the newer white roundel and black swastika of the Third Reich. He almost dropped it in sheer reflex, for the associations of evil that it held.

Again he found himself wondering what might have brought U-636 to her present resting place. His first thought had been that her captain must have been using this cave as a base from which to sally forth and harry Allied shipping. That seemed unlikely, though, for he could not imagine that the cave had ever offered safe access to and from the outside.

Had she fled here for sanctuary, then, pursued by her enemies? Again, how? He recalled hearing how stragglers from North Atlantic wolf packs sometimes had taken refuge in the depths of Tory Sound, not far away, though far more subs had ended up on the bottom than had escaped. He had even heard tell of a German sub from the First World War, said to lie on the floor of Donegal Bay, farther south. In those days, German submarines had used mercury for ballast - lots of it. There was talk of trying to salvage that ballast, for mercury in such quantities was extremely valuable; and such a salvage might also avert a later rupture, with its accompanying ecological implications.

Belatedly, he remembered the oil slick he had seen from outside. Surely this was its source. Had the sub limped here damaged, then? Shining his torch along her off side, he could see nothing overt, but who knew what lay below the waterline? More probably, however, the slick he had seen could be attributed to a leak in one or more of the fuel tanks, their fabric failing at last after five decades of progressive deterioration.

But why had she been beached here in the first place, and how? More mysterious still, now that Scanlan stopped to think about it, was the matter of the two Hare Krishna types he had seen emerging from the cave. Recalling them now, he wondered what possible connection such individuals could have with a German submarine. What were they even doing in this part of the world? - in Ireland, of all places. Had they stumbled across the cavern purely by chance? Somehow Scanlan doubted it.

A gurgling sound like the lapping of waves recalled Scanlan from his speculation, and he flashed his torch over the side again. The tide had turned. The water level in the cavern was rising - further confirmation that there must be an underwater channel leading to the outside. He had better get out of here, if he didn't want to get trapped or maybe even drowned.

Clipping the torch to his vest again, Scanlan set about refolding the flag. He was well aware that the sub's presence would have to be reported to the proper authorities. After this long, her salvage value was probably nil, but if she still held torpedoes, there was no telling how unstable they might have become in half a century. And there was the oil-spill question; who knew how much fuel might still reside in her tanks, set to trigger yet another ecological disaster?

In the meantime, however, there was no reason why Scanlan should not take the flag for himself as a souvenir. Stuffing it into the front of his survival suit, up under his life-vest, he zipped up again, then swung himself down out of the conning tower and set about retracing his route to the exit.

The grey light of the overcast day seemed glaringly bright after the dimness of the cavern's interior, even though a heavy fog bank had begun to roll in with the incoming tide.

Scanlan emerged squinting from the cave and fetched up short as his half-dazzled gaze picked up a blur of bright orange out on the ledge a dozen yards to the landward side of the cave entrance.

Even as Scanlan gasped, the blur resolved itself into one of the Hare Krishnas - or maybe he was some sort of Oriental monk, come to think of it - gazing expectantly in his direction. Startled, Scanlan looked around for the second one and spotted him down on the beach below, standing ankle-deep in the water right next to the boat, a brighter orange against the deeper shade of the inflatable craft. He could not see O'Haverty.