Dark Full of Enemies(27)

Treat shouted for the ship’s surgeon. McKay waved his men out of the way as the doctor dashed in. The doctor looked at him, swore the way only an Englishman can, and with a few other crewmen and Hopper stooped and lifted the man from the control room. Treat caught the second watchman as he prepared to go back up the ladder.

“No, my boy, that’ll not be necessary. Hopper—put up the next watch.” The next pair of men, already standing by, looked at each other and hurried to the ladder and up. The hatch slammed shut above and the dripping stopped. Treat took the watchman by the shoulder and said, “Now, then, calm now. Tell me what happened, Quayle.”

“We was just come on watch, sir, I don’t know how long, and it’s fuu—bloody windy up there, sir. Well, we heard something, we thought, and thought it must be a seabird caught in the storm, and right then it come up and struck old Smith, right out of the wind, sir. Hit him, right in the face, and he went down like he was shot, sir, I swear by all—”

Treat gripped his shoulder and patted several times. “Take off those oilskins, Quayle. You’re relieved for the rest of the watch. Dry yourself and rest. You did well.”

Quayle, calmer and pinker in the face, nodded and thanked him, then left the control room, trailing water. Treat waited until the seaman had gone before exploding.

He did not gesture, storm, throw things, or strike anyone. He simply tensed, drew up his entire body until it pulled against itself like a bowstring, and his face furnaced from the neck up. McKay sensed his team draw back and brace, and saw that this was a man in control of even his rage. He steadied himself. He must be ready for this, too.

“God damn it!” Treat shouted, and his voice was like a cannon shot in the metal chamber. “God damn it to bloody hell! Where are these bloody damned contacts of yours? Have they turned Quisling on you, sir?”

McKay said nothing.

“Commander, sir,” Hopper said, but Treat turned on him.

“That will be all, Mister Hopper. You’ve been party to this bog-up, this damned clandestine horse shit from the beginning. You may retire to your quarters.”

Hopper sagged, seeming somehow to have physically shrunk, faced about and left the room. Treat looked at McKay. The team stood frozen.

“You, sir, and all your cloak and dagger chums, think on the time you’ve wasted with this rubbish. And the lives. That bastard will probably lose his eye, and not in an honest fight with Jerry but to a fucking gull in a blizzard.”

Treat spoke the word like most English officers McKay had known—carefully enunciated to register maximum emphasis, dragging across the first letter, the vowel wrenched into an O or an A, the pair of hard sounds at the end clapping against each other. It was like the fissure in a boiler rupturing and exploding. McKay, a Marine, was unimpressed.

He focused himself, stayed calm. He and Treat stood in silence for a moment, long enough for the men in the room to unfreeze and glance carefully at the pair, and for McKay to confirm that Treat had spoken his piece.

Finally Treat said, “Shame, sir. This vessel has been used as a ferry barge for the last time.”

“I’m sorry, Commander,” McKay said. “You have my sympathy.”

“Damn your sympathy. We remain another hour. After that you may either row ashore in an inflatable boat or return with us.”

McKay took a breath. “You have orders, Commander.”

“Damn your orders. Jerry is thick as you bloody well please in these waters, and this vessel is of far better use sinking that lot to the bottom of the ice-choked ocean than busing your damned commandos back and forth. One hour, sir!”

“Orders, Commander. You can patrol as much as you like between our arrival and departure. Until then—”

“Until then what?” Treat said. He no longer raged, but his face had only grown redder. The phrase a fervent heat came to McKay’s mind.

McKay said nothing. Treat waited. The radio operator coughed and spoke.

“The code, sir—I’ve just received the codewords.”





It took another hour and a half for the fishing boat to arrive, and McKay spent most of that time climbing up and down the conning tower ladder, watching for the Norwegians in the wind and snow.

At 1720, the watchmen spotted the flash of a lamp through the dark and sleet and ice. They pointed it out to McKay and returned the signal. Visibility was poor—the boat must be within a quarter mile of the sub. McKay forgot the cold and watched a long, low shadow shape itself from the storm and dark and draw alongside the sub. The Norwegians had arrived.

The boat sat restlessly in the water and rocked with every wave that washed below it. It was long, at least sixty feet, and inelegant, with a straight bow and a two-story cabin and wheelhouse at the stern. The word tub came to mind, along with knorr, the unlovely ships that had plied the north Atlantic for these Norwegians’ forebears. McKay peered at the windows of the boat but could not see the helmsman. The wheelhouse had a nameplate, an oaken plank with carved and painted letters—hardr?de. McKay grinned. He knew the name of Harald Hardrada, the “hard-ruler,” the last Viking king.

McKay slid down the ladder, caught himself at the bottom, and said, “Saddle up.”

Stallings, Graves, and Ollila stood before him, ready. He grew even more excited. He liked his team. He thought, Now for the hard part.