The Man who Missed the War (10 page)

Suddenly, Philip’s mouth twitched, and he was filled with silent laughter. It was caused by the thought that, although his
own people would not listen to him, the Germans thought him dangerous enough for them to go to considerable trouble to kill him. It was the greatest compliment he could possibly have been paid, and seeing the funny side of it released the tension he was under, causing his blood to flow warmly through his veins again. Yet, the second that his mind turned to the future he became extremely perturbed.

He saw now why Eiderman had expressed such interest and satisfaction when he had learnt that Raft Convoys Ltd. was a one-man venture unbacked by any of the big British shipping concerns; and why he had urged so strongly that the date of the sailing of the convoy should be kept secret. Naturally, he did not want any publicity given to the project which he could possibly stop, because the wider the knowledge of it became the more likely it was that someone else would attempt to interest the British Government in it after Philip had been eliminated. But that was of no importance now, the thing that mattered was—how far was Captain Sorensen a party to Eiderman’s designs?

Philip felt that much hung on this: his life perhaps. One thing was certain: after what he had heard there could be no question of his sailing with that cut-throat crew. By thinking up some plausible excuse he must get the
Regenskuld
to tow the convoy back to New York, where, once safely ashore, he could have a showdown with Eiderman, and later secure another crew from the British Seamen’s Mission. Walking on tiptoe he made his way back to his cabin.

While he dressed as swiftly and quietly as he could, he again speculated about the possible position of the Captain. If Sorensen were in the business, immediately he was asked to take his principal passenger and the rafts—which were the whole object of the trip—back to New York he would guess that Philip had smelt a rat, and send for Eiderman. Then the fat would be in the fire, and Philip felt that he might find himself in about as desperate a situation as he could possibly imagine. On the other hand, the more he thought about it the more unlikely it seemed to him that Sorensen was involved. From the little Philip had seen of him the old sea Captain did not seem at all the type who would agree to become accessory before the fact of murder. The odds were that he and his ship’s company were acting in perfectly
good faith; but, even if that were so, he would be extremely surprised to receive an order to put back to port, and Philip began to rack his brains for a plausible excuse.

After some minutes of hard thinking he decided to feign illness. He could say that before he had left London he had been warned by his doctor that he ought to have his appendix out, that he had ignored the warning at the time, but a sudden attack of acute pain in the last hour had brought it home to him that it would be absolute madness to chance a two months’ voyage on which no doctor would be available.

A glance at his watch showed him that it was just after half past two. It occurred to him that the Captain might have turned in, but he thought that unlikely, owing to their proximity to the coast and the unusual shortness of the trip. Very quietly he closed the door of his cabin behind him and went up the companionway to the bridge.

To his relief he saw Captain Sorensen standing near the binnacle, and the Captain, catching sight of him at the same moment, turned and came towards him.

‘Hello, jong man! What do you make opp herr?’ the short, thickset old sailor greeted him in a friendly voice. ‘Et iss aarly yet, an’ der iss anoder two-tree hour before we to your launch let you down.’

‘I know,’ replied Philip; and adopting a voice that he strove to keep clear enough to be comprehensible, yet low and panting to suggest that he was in serious pain, he went on to tell him the story about his appendix and ask that with as little delay as possible the
Regenskuld
should tow the whole convoy back to New York.

‘Dis iss bad,’ muttered the Captain sympathetically. ‘Kom into my cabin an’ I gif you der goot Schnapps. But for me to about ship der order from Mister Eiderman muss kom.’

Philip followed him down to his cabin, now fairly certain in his mind that the Captain was not in the plot to murder him. He hated the taste of the Schnapps but drank the fiery spirit off with a little shudder, then proceeded to reiterate his request.

‘I haf tell you,’ repeated the old sailor, ‘to about ship der order from Mister Eiderman muss kom.’

‘He’s certain to be asleep, so why bother to waken him?’
argued Philip. ‘And, after all, this is my show, I’m paying for the rafts to be towed out to sea just as I paid for the tugs and all the rest of it.’

‘Ja, ja
, I not argue wid you over dat. You pay Eiderman maybe, but Eiderman charter der
Regenskuld
for der job, see? So he der boss roun’ herr ess, an’ eff you want me to about ship der order from Eiderman muss kom.’

Realising that it was futile to argue further, Philip thanked the old fellow for the Schnapps and, still making a pretence of being in pain, by holding his tummy, retired to his cabin.

It seemed that his choice now lay in waiting until six o’clock when everyone would come on deck and expect him to go over the side into the launch with the five Nazi assassins; or going along to tackle Eiderman then and there.

On thinking it over, it seemed to him that if he waited until dawn he would be at a greater disadvantage, as Eiderman would then have at his disposal his five thugs, and perhaps even further aid if, as was quite possible, there were a number of other Germans among the ship’s company. If Eiderman found himself thwarted, he would be capable of doing all sorts of mischief with such a bunch at his orders, the least of which might be the scuttling of the launch and the sabotaging of the contents of the Number One raft. Moreover, to wait would give it away to Captain Sorensen that he had only been shamming illness, and by that he might lose the Captain’s goodwill. No; it would be better to tackle Eiderman now, while he was alone.

As he walked along the passage he noticed an iron turnscrew with a square hole in its brightly polished rounded brass top, hanging on a hook. It looked a pretty useful weapon, so he took it down as a precaution against Eiderman cutting up rough, then advanced boldly towards his enemy’s cabin. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest but he knew that his only hope lay in showing a bold face and trying to bluff his enemy.

Streaks of light coming through the ventilator above the door indicated that the German was still awake. Philip did not knock but with one turn of the brass knob threw open the door. Eiderman, clad in a silk dressing-gown, was lying on his bunk reading.

‘Hello! What the hell…?’ he exclaimed, sitting up with a jerk
but he broke off suddenly as he saw the grim look on his visitor’s face.

Philip wasted no time in beating about the bush. ‘If you want a row, we’ll have it; but I don’t think losing our tempers would do either of us any good at the moment. I’m on to your little game and I’m not playing; so I must trouble you to come up on the bridge and tell Captain Sorensen that he’s to about ship and tow the convoy back to New York.’

‘So!’ the German sneered contemptuously, and putting down his book thrust his hands deep into his dressing-gown pockets.

‘Come on!’ said Philip, a trifle nervously. ‘Sorensen is expecting you. I’ve already told him that my appendix has flared up and that I’ve decided not to risk the voyage. That’s a good enough excuse for you to tell him to turn back.’

‘And what do you propose to do if I refuse?’ Eiderman asked calmly. ‘Beat me over the head with that big spanner?’

The disdain in his tone made Philip flush. He was seeing Eiderman now with new eyes. How he could ever have trusted this man Philip could not think, but in spite of his loathing for him he managed to keep control over his temper, as he replied:

‘Herr Kapitan
, you will either do as I say or face the music. I’ll tell Sorensen that you’ve been planning to have me murdered and insist that he radios the nearest patrol boat to come out and investigate. Then, in front of the U.S. officers I’ll accuse you of being an American citizen in the pay of a foreign country—Nazi Germany. I know I’ve got no proof of that, but the police might persuade one of your thugs to talk, and in any case as far as the authorities are concerned you’ll be a marked man from now on.’

‘Say, you’re smarter than I thought,’ Eiderman acknowledged, swinging his feet off the bunk and standing up. ‘That would certainly be most inconvenient. My old friend Heinrich Himmler would not be at all pleased to learn that his best officer in the United States had become the target for every little Federal agent’s suspicions.’ Suddenly his voice hardened, as he added: ‘Such revelation I will not permit.’

‘All right then! Come up to the bridge and tell Sorensen that he’s to turn round.’

The cabin was quite a roomy one. Philip was standing with his back to the door, which he had closed behind him. Eiderman was about six feet away beside the bunk from which he had just risen. Without a word to Philip he turned his back, walked a few more paces to the porthole end of the cabin and pulled open a drawer in the dressing-table which stood beneath it. Glancing over his shoulder he remarked jeeringly:

‘You British are a wonderful people, are you not? So sporting! You never hit an enemy from behind.’ Suddenly he whipped round with a big automatic clutched firmly in his hand.

Pointing it at Philip he went on: ‘You young fool! What impertinence even to think of crossing swords with me! You are scheduled to die in a few days’ time, at the first sign of even moderately rough weather. All you have succeeded in doing is to advance the hour of your extermination. I propose to kill you here and now!’

Philip paled under the threat. He had half feared that when Eiderman had moved over to the dressing-table it had been to get a weapon, yet somehow he had not been able to bring himself to strike the German down while his back was turned. Now it looked as if he were about to pay for his quixotry with his life.

‘You—you’d better be careful,’ he stammered. ‘If you let that thing off one of the sailors will hear it and—and come rushing along to find out what’s happened.’

At that moment a roll of thunder sounded and the rain came sheeting down on the deck above. Eiderman bared his white teeth in a mirthless grin. ‘Listen to that,’ he snarled, jerking his head slightly towards the cabin ceiling. ‘Even God is now fed up with protecting so stupid a people as the British and when we need it sends us Germans the weather that suits us best. The crew will keep to their quarters while it rains like this, and no one upon the bridge could hear a shot fired down here.’

‘Even if they don’t Sorensen will want to know what’s happened to me,’ Philip burst out. ‘If you kill me you’ll swing for it—I mean, go to the electric chair.’

‘You are wrong! I am no novice at removing unwanted meddlers from my path. Many times I have had to do so in the
interests of my beloved Fuehrer, and you, I think, have already provided me with a good explanation for your own death.’

‘What the hell d’you mean?’

‘You have told Captain Sorensen about your appendix, have you not? You have pretended suddenly to be very ill tonight as an excuse to get back to New York. Very well. How can we be certain that the appendix is the cause of the trouble? It might be peritonitis or a haemorrhage—something which would flare up suddenly, causing you to collapse here in my cabin in about one minute’s time. Actually the cause will be a bullet through the stomach. But no one except Auffen and myself will know that. I shall partially undress you, plug the wound to stop it bleeding, cover up the bullet hole in your clothes, lay your body on my bunk and respectfully cover it with a sheet.’

Philip stared at the tall thin man. The palms of his hands were damp, but he felt an entirely detached fascination in listening to this callous account of what was to be done with his dead body. Almost automatically he began to argue.

‘You seem to have forgotten that in cases of sudden death like that there’s always a post-mortem.’

Eiderman laughed. ‘You young fool! There is no doctor in this ship and we are now outside United States territorial waters. After Sorensen has had a look at your face, and felt your pulse and heart if he wishes, I shall bring Hans Auffen here to sew you up in a piece of canvas. Then tomorrow morning, instead of your going off with your rafts, you will be buried at sea.’

‘Sorensen may not agree to that,’ cried Philip, desperate now that he saw the trap he had helped to fashion closing so surely about him.

‘He
will
agree!’ The German’s thin mouth became a sneering line. ‘He would not turn back to New York without an order from me, would he? That old Norwegian fool at least has the sense to know who is the master here. He will do what I tell him!’

Stepping forward a pace and thrusting out both his chin and his pistol, Eiderman became even more threatening as he went on: ‘Before you die, little Englishman, it is good that you should understand that soon there will be only two kinds of people in this world—Masters and Slaves. We Germans, who are the
natural Master Race, will at last come into our own. Every other race will either submit—or be liquidated. France, Holland, Belgium will give us little trouble. The Balkan countries are too ill equipped to offer any resistance, and it is so long since the Scandinavian peoples went to war that they have forgotten how to fight. In Europe that leaves only Britain; and you British are so stupid you will not even have the sense to realise the hopelessness of fighting—so we shall have to wipe you out. Don’t think either that your Raft Convoy would have saved your country. It was a good idea, a very good idea, but as your proverb says: “One swallow does not make a summer!” Also, even quite a number of clever young men are not enough to save a country which allows itself to be led by a lot of old men who think only of party politics. That is where we Germans have been so wise in abolishing political parties for the National Socialist State. Above all, we have our mighty Fuehrer to lead us. …’