Death and the Dreadnought Page 25

  Good thing I had, too. Otherwise I’d have knocked down the man who suddenly appeared at the other end, instead of just surprising him. He didn’t look the kind of chap who liked surprises. I was starting to take in just what an imposing shape he was, and noticing the similarly hard-looking men around him, when a voice nearby said: ‘Delamere?’

  The voice – the nasal sneer – was unmistakeable.

  It was Raikes.

  Had this hero of the mob not been normal-sized and normalish-looking I’d have spotted him sooner. For a moment, I was as surprised as he was. ‘Raikes? What the hell are–… But of course.’ The information from the police; the radicals coming up by train for their next big meeting. ‘You’re here with the revolutionary pilgrimage, aren’t you? Next stop on the touring holiday. But there’s not much to sabotage in this part of the docks, surely.’

  He was still staring at me, and at last I rubbed a hand across my cheek and saw how black the soot had left me. He was about to answer my remark with something similarly childish, but stopped himself, glancing at the man beside him. There was something like deference in his manner; I’d have been less surprised if he’d broken into God Save the King.

  ‘Mr Scoular here is Secretary of the United Society of Boilermakers and Shipbuilders hereabouts’, he said formally. ‘His territory now, Delamere.’ Scoular might have puffed up at this flattery, but there wasn’t room for any more puffing. He couldn’t have been more than five foot six, but he wasn’t much less broad. A very solid man indeed, and he looked damn’ tough. I supposed one didn’t get to rule the Glasgow docks without overcoming a challenge or two on the way. Scoular appeared to have done so with his head: it was a battered, mottled, shaven head, and it didn’t seem to like the look of me.

  Raikes pointed a distasteful finger at me. ‘Mr Delamere is the last gasp of the British aristocracy, brother Walter. The final glass of champagne, eh Delamere? Bona fide war hero, and a proper gent, aren’t you? Probably a murderer as well, but really no more than the rest of his class.’

  Brother Walter was considering me with distaste. ‘What’s he doing here, then?’ I think that’s what he said, anyway. His accent was broad, angular Glaswegian; for all I could make out, he might have been inviting me home to meet his sister or just clearing his sinuses.

  ‘Mr Delamere has a deep interest in the affairs of the working man, don’t you Delamere?’ The quiet level voice as ever, the sarcasm soft and thunderous. ‘Quite the connoisseur of dockyards.’

  I got a word in at last. ‘Out on that dockside is a steam-yacht. The men around it are German spies. They’re stealing a top-secret piece of naval apparatus.’

  The Scottish lump looked confused. I couldn’t blame him; he’d not been following the narrative from the beginning. Raikes just watched me, cold.

  Then he shrugged.

  ‘While you’re having your committee meeting, they’re getting away. You don’t care?’

  ‘If it’s any help, I loathe the German government fully as much as I loathe the British.’ The Scottish chap made a noise of agreement; or perhaps he was suffering from bronchitis. ‘Should they annihilate each other, I would find it efficient as well as satisfactory.’

  ‘That apparatus in German hands means the deaths of British sailors.’

  ‘They’re doomed the moment they take their shilling from this war-mongering regime.’

  ‘Your fantastical revolution is being picked off, man by man, while you debate the right typeface to print the pamphlets. They killed Merridew, once the Secretary of your Union. They killed John Tulliver, the night-watchman at the Thames Ironworks yard.’ I glanced towards the Scottish chap. ‘They’ve just shot one of yours, too.’

  I saw the Scottish chap’s eyes harden. I saw Raikes, very slowly, as if tasting uncertainty for the first time, licking his lips.

  67.

  The Battle of Bethlehem Quay has, over the years, gained rather a grand reputation in the annals of British radicalism.

  As one of the very few people who witnessed it – indeed, as the chap who started it – I may say that it wasn’t exactly Waterloo. Not much more than a dozen or two fellows on each side, and what you’d call an inconclusive result. But that only increases my respect for the English and Scottish Trades Union men who fought it. And the philosophers who have since used it to show that radicalism isn’t incompatible with patriotism, well, they’ve got a point.

  Painful though it is to admit it, I had to admire Raikes in that moment. Insidious weasel he might be, but when it came to the crisis he had more than his share of cold courage, and that’s the rarest kind.

  I thought they weren’t going to make it in time. I watched from behind an enormous metal mooring bollard fifty yards away, as Hertenstein and co. went about their business with their usual efficiency. There wasn’t a crane at this isolated bit of the docks, but the gang had had a couple of carrying poles all ready, and these were rapidly lashed to the crate, and it was manoeuvred down from the wagon onto the dockside. There Hertenstein insisted on having a look inside. He’d not wanted to slow the train before, I suppose, but now he wanted to be sure what he’d got. Didn’t fancy saving up the great unveiling of his prize for when he was standing in front of the Kaiser, and then finding that he’d smuggled out a crate of novelty knit-wear from Lancashire.

  And still I was alone on the dockside. I confess some pretty ungenerous thoughts about the British Trades Union movement in that moment. It would, no doubt, be impossible for them to order a bowl of soup without having a two-day conference first and translating the proceedings for the benefit of the Bulgarian delegation, so God only knew how much deliberation they’d need for this job.

  And now one of Hertenstein’s men had taken a chisel to the side of the crate, and it was lying on the dockside, and Hertenstein was looking pretty pleased with himself, and he was turning to some little chap who’d just hurried down the gangplank from the yacht, and the little chap was peeking into the crate and then nodding.

  Then I heard boots, and I turned.

  No more than a dozen or two of them, and pretty rough, but the relief column coming into Mafeking can’t have looked any sweeter.

  Raikes was out in front. I can’t say I’d ever found his cold-eyed insolence very charming when directed at me, but his capacity to maintain it when walking silently towards a gang of armed assassins was damned impressive. His Glaswegian colleague was beside him. Scoular didn’t look the sort to shirk a scrap, and in his own dockyard he couldn’t be anywhere but the front rank. Their men were in a loose squad behind.

  For a moment I wished I’d given them a couple of pointers on close order infantry tactics, but immediately I saw it hadn’t been needed. They’d spent years in running battles with the police, and they knew what they were doing.

  They were past me before any of the Germans saw them, the steady tramp of boots relentless over the dockside. Then one of the Germans was calling to Hertenstein, and even at distance I could see his concern.

  And still Raikes’s band tramped on. It was madness; they’d be shot down in rows, I could see it, I knew the ruthlessness of these Germans.

  ‘Ho there!’ It was the first noise they’d made, and it was the Scottish leader. ‘I demand to know yer business in ma yard!’ And still they tramped forwards.

  Now I saw Hertenstein’s predicament, as he gazed at this scruffy band bearing down on him. He surely didn’t want a massacre: he didn’t want the attention, he didn’t want the delay, he didn’t want his own men left here wounded. He could slaughter Raikes and comrades, but it would only be a distraction from his desperate need to get his prize onto the yacht and away. He took a step or two towards the approaching Trades Union men, as if to offer parley, hoping at least to stop them.

  They didn’t stop. They were thirty yards away from the wagon and the yacht now, and Hertenstein’s dilemma was clear.

  He solved it with his usual instinct. He pulled out his pistol, and held it high. Behind him, at least half o
f his men did the same. There were shouts from the deck of the yacht, and now the crew was mustering. Quick onto the firing-step, the Germans.

  Raikes and his squad stopped still. But each man had reached into a pocket and found a knife, or a cosh, or a marlin-spike; a few had dropped to the ground. Fair enough, I thought, until I saw they weren’t ducking but prising up stones.

  The two bands faced each other across the dock-side: Raikes and the Scottish street-fighters, versus Hertenstein and his assassins.

  I saw Raikes and his Scottish mate looking at each other.

  ‘I’m obliged to carry on, Mr Raikes.’

  ‘Your docks, Mr Scoular. Quite proper.’

  And they nodded to each other, and they carried on towards the killers, and their squad followed.

  Hertenstein yelled something, and fired a shot in the air. The Scottish flinched, but pressed on. A volley of shots into the air from the Germans, and still they came, and Hertenstein yelled another order and now the shots were aimed at the oncoming men. I heard the cries of pain, saw two stagger or stumble – three – four. The Germans were deliberately aiming at arms and legs – God, but Hertenstein knew discipline – and it worked. The Trade Union men broke and ran – staggered – round to the left of the locomotive and relative safety.

  So much for the preliminary skirmishing. It put Raikes and Scoular and their men along the landward side of the train, wounded but damned angry. On the other side, between the train and the yacht, Hertenstein and his band were rather wondering what to do with themselves. With typical speed, he had his men detailed. Some were firing through the gaps between the train’s coaches – and under the coaches, at the feet, which was rather unsporting – while he had a squad wrestling with the crate and its precious contents.

  All very handy, but now they came under a hail of stones, thrown over the roof of the train. It ain’t so easy to prise up a cobble, but the street-fighters were experts, and strong too: they had the things arcing over the coach in numbers enough to do damage. Before the Germans had worked out what was happening, a couple of them had been hit on the head and gone down – get hit on the head by plunging fire from a cobblestone and you surely feel it. Then I saw some of the Trade Union men climbing up into the passenger carriage, and while the barrage of stones continued over the roof, they opened a second line of attack with things thrown from the carriage windows down onto the bewildered Germans on the dockside. You wouldn’t think there was much loose and throwable in the average railway carriage, but you’ve not reckoned with an inventive Scottish street-fighter with a knife in his pocket and revenge on his mind. Wood panels, glass, light fittings: a storm of miscellaneous debris showered over the Germans, and they replied with increasingly random and angry gunfire. And all the time Hertenstein was urging his squad up the gang plank onto the yacht with their booty, the crate still minus its side-panel. It was about now that some bright chap in the train re-invented Greek fire from the resources available to him, and burning cushions began spinning out of the carriage windows towards the retreating Germans.

  The London and North Western Railway were going to be more than unhappy when they got their train back. I hoped they’d touched Hertenstein for a hefty deposit up front.

  The Battle of Bethlehem Quay was rather brief, and rather chaotic. But well before it was done, I was in the water and paddling unseen down the shadow of the dockside and then round the stern of the yacht.

  68.

  I had my pick of a couple of portholes within stretching distance of the waterline. The fracas on the dockside gave me time enough to choose carefully, and confidence that everyone would be on the deck and looking the other way.

  I found myself in a bunk room: crew quarters, presumably. Unfortunate, because it seemed the sort of place where my wet footprints would be more out of place. Fortunate, because I had my choice of four kit-bags. Inside a minute I was out of my wet gear and in some other chap’s trousers and wool pullover. My wet boots I had to live with, and I was disappointed that no one had thought to keep a spare hat; not being easily recognized was likely to prove important.

  My suit I had to stuff under a bunk; couldn’t risk someone on deck seeing it popping out of the porthole. I was sorry to see it go: good quality tweed, as I say, and I’d come through a lot in it.

  I had to move fast. I had a few minutes, surely, while the kerfuffle continued top side and the Germans concentrated on getting the crate onboard and secure, and getting away from the shore. After that…

  I stuck my head out into the corridor as boldly as I could. I’d taken advantage of the swim to wash the soot off. At distance, I looked like someone who belonged on the boat. There was a fair chance that the crew and the men who’d come up on the train didn’t know each other much. I should be well, as long as I kept my distance and met no one who knew my face.

  Which of course Hertenstein and possibly quite a few of his gang did.

  I had to move fast.

  I was more alert to noise now. From up on deck there were gunshots, as the Germans completed their fighting retreat onto the yacht. To my right, the corridor ran forwards twenty yards or more, doors on both sides all the way; to my left it was only a few paces to a right-angle turn in the corridor, presumably where it met the stern.

  Reconnaissance. I had to use my minutes of relative freedom to know my way around.

  I took the few paces towards the stern. There the corridor turned and ran across the yacht for a dozen feet or so, and then turned again into what was presumably another corridor, running forwards along the port side in parallel to the first.

  In the middle of the cross passage, a set of wooden stairs led up onto the deck, through an open hatch. The noise from the outside was much louder here. Immediately above me was a great heaving and thumping. Still no raised voices: just the quiet command of Hertenstein.

  The crate was onboard, and presumably being secured on the deck.

  One, two gunshots, but this was just keeping the Scots at bay. Soon they would – and then I heard a shout from Hertenstein and almost immediately I felt a shuddering through my feet as the engine engaged the propeller. I was committed now, no question. And at any minute all those boots up on deck would he thundering down the steps in front of me for a well-deserved cup of cocoa. Instinctively I opened the door nearest me – and then caught myself. Hiding, or more likely getting trapped in a dead end, was not Plan A.

  I started to close the door again, but in doing so I saw that it was a storeroom. And that might be handy. I nipped inside. As I did, the yacht shifted under me, sideward. We were away from the dockside and moving.

  The store was handier than I’d hoped. I’d imagined tearing up a bit of sheet or something, but my efficient hosts had medical supplies in here too, including some hefty rolls of bandage. It didn’t take thirty seconds to wrap a generous length of it around my head and over one eye. Now I was one of the wounded heroes from the battle with the Scots, and even harder to recognize.

  Then I was hurrying forwards along the starboard corridor, opening and closing every door. There would be a time for stealth, but while Hertenstein and most of his crew were up top it was the time for reckless haste and see what happens.

  What happens was that I found various cabins, the galley with a cook who clearly didn’t want to be disturbed, and the latrine with an inhabitant likewise. I felt he’d no right to be shirking on the thunderbox when the battle and the heavy lifting were on deck. He’d probably risked a first taste of Scottish cuisine and was now regretting it. I retreated quickly. By the time I did there were footsteps in the corridor behind me. I stopped fooling around with doors, and continued forwards. Now I had to blend in: to look purposeful, and to avoid conversation. And I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

  Almost immediately I was at the forward end of the corridor, and again it turned across towards the other side of the yacht and there was a set of steps going up. As I reached them, a pair of legs descended beside me. My hand came up to a
djust my bandage, so in effect my whole face was covered, and I politely stepped back and beckoned the chap past.

  He stopped. He looked at me. He said something in German.

  I grunted.

  He gestured to the bandage, then clapped me on the shoulder. Wounded hero; jolly good. He strode off. I wondered what the German for ‘damned Scottish cobblestones’ was.

  Looking up the stairs, I could see the backs of two and then three men. They were standing still and looking ahead. Unlike the stern stair which led up on deck, this one led up into an enclosed space. It looked very like the bridge.

  I looked more closely. One of the backs reached its summit in a fringe of blond hair.

  I was standing under Hertenstein. As I watched, I heard his voice. Orders to the man next to him, quiet and short and immediately the chap was agreeing. One did not, I suspect, do much chit-chat with Admiral Hertenstein.

  I needed to be near here, but I needed not to be idling and waiting for Hertenstein to take it into his head to look around the scenery or pop down to see if the gents’ had come free. I continued my tour of the corridor, sternwards along the parallel, port side stretch of it.

  Some of the doors had signs on them, but these were in ornamental gothic script and at waist height, and I couldn’t risk being caught bending and peering and looking lost. At the far end of the corridor, by the stern, there was a sudden crowd of men. They’d just come down from the deck by the aft stair. I ducked my head slightly, took a breath, and continued steadily towards them. They bustled into cabins. I had to pray my unknown and unknowing benefactor wouldn’t take it into his head to need his second sweater.

  I’d gone half a dozen paces, when I heard steps on the forward stairs. I turned, and began to walk towards the bow again. I timed it nicely, so I was just at the corner when the man got to the bottom. If he came my way I’d repeat the bandage performance and continue to the starboard side corridor. I could, I suppose, have continued this back and fro indefinitely, until someone recognized me, or my heart gave out, or we got to Germany.