‘I’ll see about that when I’ve had a talk with Sunde,’ I replied. His face looked pale and very young in the moonlight. A livid bruise was darkening round his eye.
‘You got a nasty clip,’ I said.
‘Oh, that,’ he said, feeling his eye. ‘It’s nothing. It was his head that did that.’
‘Feeling all right?’
‘Fine, thanks. Bit chilly, that’s all. Could you pass me a duffle coat?’
I opened the cockpit clothing locker and flung him one of the coats. ‘I’ll send Wilson up to relieve you,’ I said and went for’ard to the main hatch.
As I descended the ladder I heard Sunde’s voice through the open door of the saloon. ‘Oi tell yer, Oi don’t know nuffink, miss,’ he was saying. He gave a quick gasp of pain.
‘Sorry — am I hurting you?’ Jill’s voice was soft and coaxing. ‘There, that’s fine. I’ll have that hand right in no time. Mr Sunde. I want you to help me.’
‘Oi’ll do anyfink I can, miss.’
I stopped at the bottom of the companionway. They had not heard me coming down in my rubber shoes. Through the open doorway I could see Jill’s face, very intense, very determined. She was sitting facing the diver across the saloon table and she held his bandaged hand in hers. ‘It means a lot to me,’ she said. Her voice was quiet. ‘A man called George Farnell was killed about a month ago on the Jostedal. He was-’ She hesitated. ‘I was very fond of him, Mr Sunde. Until the other day I thought it was an accident. I thought he had been alone. Then I discovered that someone had been with him. His name was Schreuder — an Austrian Jew who worked for the Nazis. Instead of going to the authorities and telling what he knew about Farnell’s death, he came to Bovaagen Hval, shipped as a hand with Captain Lovaas and tried to escape to the Shetlands. That was the man who jumped overboard from Hval Ti yesterday morning — the man you picked up.’
‘Nah look ‘ere, miss. Oi don’t know nuffink aba’t it, see. Oi’m just a diver, Oi am. Oi don’t want no trouble.’
‘You had trouble tonight, didn’t you?’ Jill said slowly. ‘Major Wright told me all about it. If it hadn’t been for Mr Gansert you might be dead now. You’d have told Captain Lovaas what you know then he might have disposed of you. You owe your life to Mr Gansert and the two others who were with him — Major Wright and Mr Everard. Isn’t that so?’
‘Oi ‘xpects you’re roight, miss,’ Sunde answered. His voice sounded hoarse and uncertain. ‘But Oi don’t want no trouble, see. There’s me partner, too. ‘E an’ Oi were in it tergevver durin’ the war an’ Oi ain’t never done anyone dirt, see.’
Jill sighed. ‘Listen, Mr Sunde. Nobody will get into trouble. All we want to know is where Schreuder has been taken. We want to find him and talk to him. We want the truth about Farnell’s death. That’s all. We don’t want to turn him over to the authorities. We just want to know what happened. Please — won’t you help us?’ She took hold of his other hand. ‘Mr Sunde.’ she said, and her voice was hardly audible, ‘I loved George Farnell. I want to know how he died. I’ve a right to know. This man Schreuder could help. Now please — where is he?’
The diver hesitated. His dark face was white with exhaustion. He passed his sound hand across his eyes. ‘Oi dunno. It’s all like a ruddy dream, that’s wot it is. But Oi ain’t tellin’ nobody nuffmk, see. Not wiva’t Oi talk ter me partner first. ‘E’s the brains of the outfit. Oi’m just a diver. The best ruddy diver in the ‘ole of Norway. But it’s ‘im wot’s got the brains. ‘E manages the business side, see. I bin wiv Mm ever since ‘forty. We was in Oslo when the Germans come in, doin’ a bit of salvage work da’n in Pipervika. We went up inter the mountings and joined an army unit wot was farming. But we got smashed up by the Jerries and finds ourselves across the border in Sweden. Well, we starts the great trek — ‘cross Sweden and Finland, down into Russia, ‘cross Siberia inter China. The British Consul in Hong Kong sent us ter Singapore and from there we went to India where they put us in a ship ba’nd for Clydeside. Me partner — ‘e organises the ‘ole ruddy trip.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘We bin through a lot. Peer and Oi. And Oi don’t do nuffink wiva’t Oi consult ‘im first. ‘E’s always tellin’ me — Alf, ‘e sez, you ain’t got the brains of a louse. Only ‘e sez it in Norwegian, see.’ He grinned. ‘Peer’s a great thinker.
Reads books like Altid Amber — wot ‘e calls the classics.’
Jill was leaning forward now and a sudden excitement showed on her face.’ Alf,’ she said. ‘What happened after you and your partner got to England?’
