Thunder Point

2

East of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean are the Virgin Islands, partly British like Tortola and Virgin Gorda. Across the water, just as proudly American, are St Croix, St Thomas and St John since 1917 when the United States purchased them from the Danish government for twenty-five million dollars.

St John is reputed to have been discovered by Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1493 and without a doubt is the most idyllic island in the entire Caribbean, but not that night as a tropical storm, the tail end of Hurricane Able, swept in across the old town of Cruz Bay, stirring the boats at anchor in the harbour, driving rain across the rooftops, the sky exploding into thunder.

To Bob Carney, fast asleep in the house at Chocolate Hole on the other side of Great Cruz Bay, it was the sound of distant guns. He stirred in his sleep and, suddenly, it was the same old dream, the mortars landing everywhere, shaking the ground, the screams of the wounded and dying. He’d lost his helmet, flung himself to the ground, arms protecting his head, was not even aware of being hit, only afterwards, as the attack faded and he sat up. There was pain then in both arms and legs from shrapnel wounds, blood on his hands. And then, as the smoke cleared, he became aware of another marine sitting against a tree, both legs gone below the knees. He was shaking, had a hand outstretched as if begging for help and Carney cried out in horror and sat bolt upright in bed, awake now.

The same lousy old dream, Vietnam, and that was a long time ago. He switched on the bedside lamp and checked his watch. It was only two-thirty. He sighed and stood up, stretching for a moment, then padded through the dark house to the kitchen, switched on the light and got a beer from the ice-box.

He was very tanned, the blond hair faded, both from regular exposure to sea and sun. Around five foot eight, he had an athlete’s body, not surprising in a man who had been a ship’s captain and was now a master diver by profession. Forty-four years of age, but most people would have taken seven or eight years off that.

He went through the living-room and opened a window to the verandah. Rain dripped from the roof and out to sea lightning crackled. He drank a little more of his beer then put the can down and closed the window. Better to try and get a little more sleep. He was taking a party of recreational scuba divers out from Caneel Bay at nine-thirty which meant that as usual he needed his wits about him, plus all his considerable expertise.

As he went through the living-room he paused to pick up a framed photo of his wife, Karye and his two young children, the boy Walker and his daughter, little Wallis. They’d departed for Florida only the previous day for a vacation with their grandparents which left him a bachelor for the next month. He smiled wryly, knowing just how much he’d miss them and went back to bed.

At the same moment in his house on the edge of Cruz Bay at Gallows Point, Henry Baker sat in his study reading in the light of a single desk lamp. He had the door to the verandah open because he liked the rain and the smell of the sea. It excited him, took him back to the days of his youth and his two years’ service in the navy during the Korean War. He’d made full lieutenant, had even been decorated with the Bronze Star, could have made a career of it. In fact they’d wanted him to, but there was the family publishing business to consider, responsibilities and the girl he’d promised to marry.

It hadn’t been a bad life considering. No children, but he and his wife had been content until cancer took her at fifty. From then on he’d really lost interest in the business, had been happy to accept the right kind of deal for a take-over which had left him very rich and totally rootless at fifty-eight.

It was a visit to St John which had been the saving of him. He’d stayed at Caneel Bay, the fabulous Rock Resort on its private peninsula north of Cruz Bay. It was there that he’d been introduced to scuba diving by Bob Carney and it had become an obsession. He’d sold his house in the Hamptons, moved to St John and bought the present place. His life at sixty-three was totally satisfactory and worthwhile although Jenny had had something to do with that as well.

He reached for her photo. Jenny Grant, twenty-five, face very calm, wide eyes above high cheek-bones, short dark hair and there was still a wariness in those eyes as if she expected the worst, which was hardly surprising when Baker recalled their first meeting in Miami when she’d tried to proposition him in a car-park, her body shaking from the lack of the drugs she’d needed.

When she’d collapsed, he’d taken her to hospital himself, had personally guaranteed the necessary financing to put her through a drug-rehabilitation unit, had held her hand all the way because there was no one else. It was the usual story. She was an orphan raised by an aunt who’d thrown her out at sixteen. A fair voice had enabled her to make some kind of living singing in saloons and cocktail lounges, and then the wrong man, bad company and the slide had begun.

He’d brought her back to St John to see what the sea and the sun could do. The arrangement had worked perfectly and on a strictly platonic basis. He was the father she had never known, she was the daughter he had been denied. He’d invested in a café and bar for her on the Cruz Bay waterfront, called Jenny’s Place. It had proved a great success. Life couldn’t be better and he always waited up for her. It was at that moment he heard the Jeep drive up outside, there was the sound of the porch door and she came in laughing, a raincoat over her shoulder. She threw it on a chair and leaned down and kissed his cheek.

‘My God, it’s like a monsoon out there.’

‘It’ll clear by morning, you’ll see.’ He took her hand. ‘Good night?’

‘Very.’ She nodded. ‘A few tourists in from Caneel and the Hyatt. Gosh, but I’m bushed.’

‘I’d get to bed if I were you, it’s almost three o’clock.’

‘Sure you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not. I may go diving in the morning, but I should be back before noon. If I miss you, I’ll come down to the café for lunch.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t dive on your own.’

‘Jenny, I’m a recreational diver, no decompression needed because I work within the limits exactly as Bob Carney taught me and I never dive without my Marathon diving computer, you know that.’

‘I also know that whenever you dive there’s always a chance of some kind of decompression sickness.’

‘True, but very small.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Now stop worrying and go to bed.’

She kissed him on the top of his head and went out. He returned to his book, carrying it across to the couch by the window, stretching out comfortably. He didn’t seem to need so much sleep these days, one of the penalties of growing old, he imagined, but after a while, his eyes started to close and sleep he did, the book sliding to the floor.

He came awake with a start, light beaming in through the venetian blinds. He lay there for a moment, then checked his watch. It was a little after five and he got up and went out on to the verandah. It was already dawn, light breaking on the horizon, but strangely still and the sea was extraordinarily calm, something to do with the hurricane having passed. Perfect for diving, absolutely perfect.

He felt cheerful and excited at the same time, hurried into the kitchen, put the kettle on and made a stack of cheese sandwiches while it boiled. He filled a thermos with coffee, put it in a holdall with the sandwiches and took his old reefer coat down from behind the door.

He left the Jeep for Jenny and walked down to the harbour. It was still very quiet, not too many people about, a dog barking in the distance. He dropped into his inflatable dinghy at the dock, cast off and started the outboard motor, threaded his way out through numerous boats until he came to his own, the Rhoda, named after his wife, a 35-foot Sport Fisherman with a flying bridge.

He scrambled aboard, tying the inflatable on a long line, and checked the deck. He had four air tanks standing upright in their holders, he’d put them in the day before himself. He opened the lid of the deck locker and checked his equipment. There was a rubber-and-nylon diving suit which he seldom used, preferring the lighter, three-quarter-length one in orange and blue. Fins, mask, plus a spare because the lenses were correctional according to his eye prescription, two buoyancy jackets, gloves, air regulators and his Marathon computer.

‘Carney training,’ he said softly; ‘never leave anything to chance.’

He went round to the prow and unhitched from the buoy then went up the ladder to the flying bridge and started the engines. They roared into life and he took the Rhoda out of harbour towards the open sea with conscious pleasure.

There were all his favourite dives to choose from, the Cow & Calf, Carval Rock, Congo, or there was Eagle Shoal if he wanted a longer trip. He’d confronted a lemon shark there only the previous week, but the sea was so calm that he just headed straight out. There was always Frenchcap Cay to the south and west and maybe eight or nine miles, a great dive, but he just kept going, heading due south, pushing the Rhoda up to fifteen knots, pouring himself some coffee and breaking out the sandwiches. The sun was up now, the sea the most perfect blue, the peaks of the islands all around, a breathtakingly beautiful sight. Nothing could be better.

‘My God,’ he said softly, ‘it’s a damn privilege to be here. What in hell was I doing with my life all those years?’

He lapsed into a kind of reverie, brooding about things, and it was a good thirty minutes later that he suddenly snapped out of it and checked on his position.

‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I must be twelve miles out.’

Which was close to the edge of things and that awesome place where everything simply dropped away and it was two thousand feet to the bottom, except for Thunder Point and that, he knew, was somewhere close. But no one ever dived there, the most dangerous reef in the entire region. Even Carney didn’t dive there. Strong currents, a nightmare world of fissures and channels. Carney had told him that years before an old diver had described it to him. A hundred and eighty feet on one side, then the ridge of the reef at around seventy and two thousand feet on the other. The old boy had hit bad trouble, had only just made it to the surface, had never tried again. Few people even knew where it was anyway and the sea out there was generally so turbulent that that in itself was enough to keep anyone away, but not today. It was a millpond. Baker had never seen anything like it. A sudden excitement surged in him and he switched on his fathometer, seeking the bottom, throttling back the engines, and then he saw it, the yellow ridged lines on the black screen.

He killed the engine and drifted, checking the depth reading until he was certain he was above the ridge of the reef at seventy feet, then scrambled round to the prow and dropped the anchor. After a while, he felt it bite satisfactorily and worked his way round to the deck. He felt incredibly cheerful as he stripped, pulled on the orange-and-blue nylon diving suit, then quickly assembled his gear, clamping a tank to his inflatable. He strapped the computer to the line of his air-pressure gauge, then eased himself into the jacket, taking the weight of the tank, strapping the Velcro wrappers firmly across his waist and hooking a net diving bag to his weight belt as he always did with a spotlight inside in case he came across anything interesting. He pulled on a pair of diving gloves, then sat with his feet on the platform at the stern and pulled on his fins. He spat on his mask, rinsed it, adjusted it to his face then simply stood up and stepped into the water.

It was incredibly clear and blue. He swam round to the anchor rope, paused then started down, following the line. The sensation of floating in space was, as always, amazing, a silent, private world, sunlight at first, but fading as he descended.

The reef where the anchor was hooked was a forest of coral and sea-grass, fish of every conceivable description, and suddenly, a barracuda that was at least five feet long swerved across his vision and paused, turning towards him threateningly which didn’t bother Baker in the slightest, because barracuda were seldom a threat to anyone.

He checked his dive computer. It not only indicated the depth he was at, but told him how long he was safe there and constantly altered its reading according to any change in depth he made during the dive. He was at this point at seventy feet and he turned and headed over to the left-hand side where the reef slid down to a hundred and eighty. He went over the edge, then changed his mind and went up again. It was amazing how much an extra ten or fifteen feet reduced your bottom time.

There was a reasonably strong current, he could feel it pushing him to one side. He imagined what it must be like when conditions were bad, but he was damned if that was going to stop him having a look at the big drop. The edge of the reef over there was very clearly defined. He paused, holding on to a coral head, and peered over, looking down the cliff face into a great blue vault that stretched into infinity. He went over, descended to eighty feet and started to work his way along.

It was interesting. He noted a considerable amount of coral damage, large sections having been torn away, recently, presumably the result of the hurricane although they were on a fault line here and earth tremors were also common. Some distance ahead there was a very obvious section where what looked like an entire overhang had gone, revealing a wide ledge below, and there was something there, perched on the ledge yet part of it, hanging over. Baker paused for a moment, then approached cautiously.

It was then that he received not only the greatest thrill of his diving career, but the greatest shock of a long life. The object which was pressed on the ledge and partly sticking out over two thousand feet of water was a submarine.

During his naval service Baker had done a training course in a submarine when based in the Philippines. No big deal, just part of general training, but he remembered the lectures, the training films they’d had to watch, mainly Second World War stuff and he recognized what he was looking at instantly. It was a type VII U-boat, by far the most common craft of its kind used by the German Kriegsmarine, the configuration was unmistakable. The conning tower was encrusted with marine growth, but when he approached he could still discern the number on the side, 180. The attack and control-room periscopes were still intact and there was a snorkel. He recalled having heard that the Germans had gradually introduced that as the war progressed, a device that enabled the boat to proceed under water much faster because it was able to use the power of its diesel engines. Approximately two thirds of it rested stern first on the ledge and the prow jutted out into space.

He glanced up, aware of a school of horse-eyed jacks overhead mixed with silversides, then descended to the top of the conning tower and hung on to the bridge rail. Aft was the high gun platform with its 20mm cannon and forward and below him was the deck gun, encrusted, as was most of the surface, with sponge and coral of many colours.

The boat had become a habitat as with all wrecks, fish everywhere, yellow-tail snappers, angel and parrot fish and sergeant-majors and many others. He checked his computer. On the bridge he was at a depth of seventy-five feet and he had only twenty minutes at the most before the need to surface.

He drifted away a little distance to look the U-boat over. Obviously the overhang which had recently been dislodged had provided a kind of canopy for the wreck for years, protecting it from view and, at a site which was seldom visited, it had been enough. That U-boats had worked the area during the Second World War was common knowledge. He’d known one old sailor who’d always insisted that crews would come ashore on St John by night in search of fresh fruit and water, although Baker had always found that one hard to swallow.

He swung over to the starboard side and saw what the trouble had been instantly, a large ragged gash about fifteen feet long in the hull below the conning tower. The poor bastards must have gone down like a stone. He descended, holding on to a jagged coral-encrusted edge, and peered into the control room. It was dark and gloomy in there, silverfish in clouds and he got the spotlight from his dive bag and shone it inside. The periscope shafts were clearly visible, again encrusted like everything else, but the rest was a confusion of twisted metal, wires and pipes. He checked his computer, saw that he had fifteen minutes, hesitated then went inside.

Both the aft and forward watertight doors were closed, but that was standard practice when things got bad. He tried the unlocking wheel on the forward hatch but it was immovable and hopelessly corroded. There were some oxygen bottles, even a belt of some kind of ammunition and, most pathetic thing of all, a few human bones in the sediment of the floor. Amazing that there was any trace at all after so many years.

Suddenly he felt cold. It was as if he was an intruder who shouldn’t be here. He turned to go and his light picked out a handle in the corner, very like a suitcase handle. He reached for it, the sediment stirred and he found himself clutching a small briefcase in some kind of metal, encrusted like everything else. It was enough and he went out through the gash in the hull, drifted up over the edge of the reef and went for the anchor.

He made it with five minutes to spare. Stupid bastard, he told himself, taking such a chance and he ascended just by the book, one foot per second, one hand sliding up the line, the briefcase in the other, leaving the line at twenty feet to swim under the boat and surface at the stern.

He pushed the briefcase on board, then wriggled out of his equipment which was always the worst part. You’re getting old, Henry, he told himself as he scrambled up the ladder and turned to heave his buoyancy jacket and tank on board.

He schooled himself to do everything as normal, stowing away the tank and the equipment following his usual routine. He towelled himself dry, changed into jeans and a fresh denim shirt, all the time ignoring the briefcase. He opened his thermos and poured some coffee, then went and sat in one of the swivel chairs in the stern, drinking and staring at the briefcase encrusted with coral.

The encrusting was superficial more than anything else. He got a wire brush from his tool kit and applied it vigorously and realized at once that the case was made of aluminium. As the surface cleared, the eagle and swastika of the German Kriegsmarine was revealed etched into the top right-hand corner. It was secured by two clips and there was a lock. The clips came up easily enough, but the lid remained obstinately locked, which left him little choice. He found a large screwdriver, forced it in just above the lock and was able to prise open the lid within a few moments. The inside was totally dry, the contents a few photos and several letters bound together by a rubber band. There was also a large diary in red Moroccan leather stamped with a Kriegsmarine insignia in gold.

The photos were of a young woman and two little girls. There was a date on the back of one of them at the start of a handwritten paragraph in German, 8 August 1944. The rest made no sense to him as he didn’t speak the language. There was also a faded snap of a man in Kriegsmarine uniform. He looked about thirty and wore a number of medals including the Knight’s Cross at his throat. Someone special, a real ace from the look of him.

The diary was also in German. The first entry was 30 April 1945 and he recognized the name, Bergen, knew that was a port in Norway. On the flyleaf was an entry he did understand. Korvettenkapitän Paul Friemel, U180, obviously the captain and owner of this diary.

Baker flicked through the pages, totally frustrated at being unable to decipher any of it. There were some twenty-seven entries, sometimes a page for each day, sometimes more. On some occasions there was a notation to indicate position and he had little difficulty in seeing from those entries that the voyage had taken the submarine into the Atlantic and south to the Caribbean.

The strange thing was the fact that the final entry was dated 28 May 1945 and that didn’t make too much sense. Henry Baker had been sixteen years of age when the war in Europe had ended and he recalled the events of those days with surprising clarity. The Russians had reached Berlin and reduced it to hell on earth and Adolf Hitler, holed up in the Führer Bunker at the Reich Chancellery, had committed suicide on May the 1st at 10.30 pm along with his wife of a few days only, Eva Braun. That was the effective end of the Third Reich and capitulation had soon followed. If that were so, what in the hell was U180 doing in the Virgin Islands with a final log entry dated 28 May?

If only he could speak German, and the further frustrating thing was that he didn’t know a soul in St John who did. On the other hand, if he did, would he want to share such a secret? One thing was certain, if news of the submarine and its whereabouts got out, the place would be invaded within days.

He flicked through the pages again, paused suddenly and turned back a page. A name jumped out at him. Reichsleiter Martin Bormann. Baker’s excitement was intense. Martin Bormann, Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and Secretary to the Führer. Had he escaped from the Bunker at the end, or had he died trying to escape from Berlin? How many books had been written about that?

He turned the page idly and another name came out at him, the Duke of Windsor. Baker sat staring at the page, his throat dry, and then he very carefully closed the diary and put it back in the case with the letter and photos. He closed the lid, put the case in the wheelhouse and started the engines. Then he went and hauled in the anchor.

Whatever it was, it was heavy, had to be. He had a U-boat that had gone down in the Virgin Islands three weeks after the end of the war in Europe, a private diary kept by the captain which mentioned the most powerful man in Nazi Germany after Hitler, and the Duke of Windsor.

‘My God, what have I got into?’ he murmured.

He could go to the authorities, of course, the coastguard, for example, but it had been his find, that was the trouble and he was reluctant to relinquish that. But what in the hell to do next? and then it came to him and he laughed out loud.