Mischief

By Will McIlroy

A British battleship mysteriously explodes at anchor inside a heavily defended home port at the start of World War II. MI-5 Officer Richard Kast uncovers troubling evidence of espionage but superiors whitewash the investigation.

Additional incidents follow, instigated by an elusive stranger who leaves subtle clues to taunt Kast and test his mettle. As London burns from nightly bombing raids, the pursuit becomes an intense psychological duel between a steadfast but burdened ex-boxer's stubborn resolve and the street-wise mischief and guile of a master German spy. At stake, disclosure of illegal aid agreements which threaten America's entry into the war and possession of a secret radar device which will end the bombs.

Similar societal outcasts, one man seeks redemption and the other retribution. Neither knows or expects quarter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will McIlroy
• Release date: Jul 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466197497

Will McIlroy

Amateur historian with longstanding interest in the anecdotal underpinnings (small events and ordinary people) which make history real.

Book preview

Mischief

Suspense/Thriller by Will McIlroy

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Published 2011 by Will McIlroy

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Copyright 2011 Will McIlroy

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Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Chapter 1

He hid among a cleft in the shoreline, a restive shadow in the midnight blackness. An outsider often made an outcast, this night he exacted retribution.

Three partially sunken ships blocked the narrow channel opposite, the funnels and decks eerily illuminated beneath the shifting colored streaks of an intermittent aurora. The closest ship angled forward and opened a gap just wide and deep enough at high water for a u-boat to enter, a u-boat he would guide. Past the block ships the channel opened into the broad depths of Scapa Flow, the hallowed North Sea anchorage of the Royal Navy.

He did not think himself an enemy and cared nothing about the new war with Hitler, no matter what others claimed. Inside a pocket he fingered a crumbled piece of dried currant cake, his wife’s favorite, briefly alive in the joy and pain of her memory. Some betrayals required an answer and he responded in kind, the only way he knew.

The brisk offshore breeze brought the low churn of diesels from the darkness and two flickers of light signaled across the water. He replied with a covered lantern and approached his skiff at the water’s edge.

A lorry approached a turn on the coast road behind and he froze, plainly visible in the sweep of slitted headlights. The vehicle stopped, noisily shifted gears and turned toward a small hamlet in the distance. Afraid the driver would warn harbor defenders, panic and uncertainty clutched his throat but he refused to turn back and clambered into the skiff and pushed away from the safety of the shore toward a fateful rendezvous with the next, last portion of his life.

~

Richard Kast, a reluctant boatman uncomfortable on open water, grabbed hard at the gunwale of a small motor launch buffeted by churning waves on the broad expanse of Scapa Flow, a windswept archipelago in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland.

Barely able to maintain balance or his stomach against each pitch and roll, he focused on other boats nearby which retrieved debris and bodies from nets stretched over a dark oil slick. Somewhere below lay the remains of the battleship Royal Oak, torpedoed at anchor by a u-boat two days earlier.

Inge and Melwyck, a uniformed driver and adjutant assigned from the local Defense Force, moved beside him.

Some of the fellows will float up for weeks, said Melwyck. The way of the sea.

One of the salvage divers is a friend, added Inge. Can barely speak of what he saw. They bring the bodies up face first. Religious reasons.

Little remains of such a large ship, said Kast.

On her side, only seven or eight meters down, answered Melwyck. Cruel, that.

He looked over the gunwale in response to an insistent knock and motioned for Inge. They pulled a bloated, oil blackened corpse on board face up and lay the sailor’s body in the stern.

Kast stared at the open unseeing eyes and gnarled, desperate hands of the man’s lonely, unimaginable final agony. The grim reality of war.

His jaw tightened and he realized his terse handwritten summary, a series of brief reports distilled to basics in a dry office seven hundred miles away in London, represented a callous and inadequate remembrance for the 833 men who died nearby. A strong sense of obligation to avenge the loss of a proud vessel and crew he would never know edged into his mind. The Royal Oak embodied the power and reach of the Empire and deserved an advocate willing to uncover the real cause of its demise.

It stirs the emotions a bit, to see it close, said Melwyck.

I need the truth of this.

Thought that’d be why you came.

Inge covered the body with a tarp and Kast turned into the drizzle and chill wind. The sheer size of the anchorage surprised him and the vast expanse of roiling, opaque water imposed a blunt, disturbing personal insignificance. He reached over and felt the deep, unforgiving cold of Scapa Flow, a viscerally brooding world not meant for strangers, and confronted the long open stretch from the wreck site to an implacable gray shore. The distance seemed interminable and he understood why so few crew members survived.

Twenty miles long and twelve across is Scapa, said Melwyck. Like you, most people are taken back a bit when they see it the first time. The water has its own way and takes what it wants. The Flow always wins.

Kast instinctively turned east toward a low promontory. From maps he knew the small secondary channels just beyond, unguarded except by sunken block ships, comprised the nearest entry point to the attack site. However, the official Admiralty version held the u-boat stealthily followed a British surface vessel through the anti-submarine nets at Hoxa Sound, the main entrance into Scapa from the south.

Take me to Hoxa, he said.

Inge revved the engine and the launch turned toward the broad deep water heart of the Flow. The wave chop increased and Kast again grabbed hard at the gunwale, unable to balance.

Inge grinned. Show us your sea legs.

Melwyck yelled over the noise. A rite of passage for all non Orcadians. We’re easily entertained.

Kast wiped drizzle from his face, lost his grip and swayed like a drunken dancer. An imposing former boxer accustomed to physical domination of his environment, he considered displays of weakness a serious character flaw and refused to submit. Aware Inge and Melwyck assessed his performance, he declined a sheltered bench behind the helm and regained his stance.

Where are the other warships? he asked.

Scattered to Loch Ewe and Rosyth, replied Melwyck. Scapa is no longer safe.

He pointed toward an open channel between two low islands. Hoxa Sound.

Small boats with elongated bows pushed long snake-like floating anti-submarine booms and nets closed behind an entering supply ship. The interval between the ship’s entry and repositioning of the booms made intrusion by a u-boat submerged beneath a surface vessel the most feasible entry.

The Jerries tried to come through Hoxa twice in the last war, said Melwyck. Made it neither time. Mines and depth charges took one sub, trawler rammed the other.

A good reason to try another way, answered Kast.

The launch angled into a sound along the southern boundary of the Flow and approached a listing older battleship pushed by tugboats. Kast asked if the Admiralty, already stung by the Royal Oak loss, did not disclose a second victim in the attack.

Melwyck glanced at Inge. "You’ve a suspicious mind. Others’ve asked the same question but The Royal Navy won’t say. A memorial service for the Oak is not far. Some of the local lads were known. A worthy detour if you’ve a mind."

Kast realized the request was also a test. He nodded and Inge turned the launch toward the green hilled rise of the isle of Hoy.

The boat docked at a pier beside an old naval facility and Kast followed Melwyck and Inge up a steep hillside to a cemetery overlooking the Flow. Hundreds of double rowed white headstones marked the graves of sailors from The Great War and Kast counted twenty six new sites in a corner for Royal Oak victims. He insisted the others enter without him and stood outside a low stone wall, careful not to intrude in a place and among people not rightfully his.

Eager to be off the water but accustomed to the visual and physical confinement of urban life, Kast felt uncomfortably exposed on the windswept Orkney hillside. Surrounding peat fields, gorse covered moors and a leaden sky formed a remote, featureless landscape dominated by the ubiquitous expanse of water. In the distance a large island formed the dark shoreline of the anchorage’s northern boundary and closer in small islands marked by naval and refueling facilities led to the Hoxa entrance and the southern boundary. Across the Flow diagonally to the right Kast recognized the promontory near the wreck site and beyond, small blotches among the silvered glint of water, several deserted islets framed the unused eastern channel entrances.

The memorial ceremony ended with the laying of a wreath and a mournful tribute by a lone bugler. About forty Royal Oak crew members departed solemnly through the gate, many in mismatched donated clothing and shoes.

The earlier shroud of mist and rain receded and long, narrow shafts of pale sun filtered through the overcast created striking contrasts of shifting shadow and light across the water.

Melwyck approached. A local poet once said Orkney is a beauteous place and on a sunny day a soulful man might live by the eye alone. Of course, a different poet called it miles of damn all surrounded by more miles of damn all. Weather is a basic part of life here, a daily test of resolve against the elements.

Kast nodded. There is clarity, openness and space to see. Unlike the city.

They started back along the path beside the cemetery. Soft pops came on the wind and Inge pointed at puffs of black smoke in the sky over the western end of the Flow.

Air raid, he exclaimed. Best to take cover.

Inge and Melwyck hurried behind the cemetery wall. Kast remained in the open and watched four small dark shapes move low across the water amid sporadic anti-aircraft fire from ships and shore batteries. Dingy geysers of water from bombs he never saw erupted across a jagged path near a hospital ship and the intruders, twin engined Ju-88 dive bombers, roared past and arced into a slow climb for another run.

Melwyck pulled on Kast’s arm. Please, sir.

Kast shook his head and turned back. The planes again dipped low over the water and used the hospital ship to shield their approach. The anti-aircraft fire intensified and bright orange tracers crisscrossed between exploding black puffs near the advancing planes.

A tiny spectator at a giant moving picture, Kast stood transfixed and exhilarated by his first actual combat experience. This time he saw the bombs, tiny shapes that floated innocuously in the air then dove quickly downward and exploded around the old battleship.

The planes passed again and Kast glimpsed the blurred faces of his enemy, seemingly close at hand and yet unreachable. A shell burst shattered the wing of one aircraft and it rolled over, veered sharply down and exploded in an oily fireball on the hillside above the cemetery. The crisp white parachute of a lone survivor floated starkly against the sky, softly and briefly suspended in time above a plume of roiling black smoke, then dropped to the ground.

Inge and Melwyck jumped from behind the wall and exchanged hand claps.

We got one! cried Inge. Just what the boys needed, a chance to shoot back.

The swift, unexpected ferocity of the brief encounter reminded Kast of the sudden fury and abrupt personal destruction inside a boxing ring.

Melwyck turned to him. Something to see, isn’t it?

Yes. Yes it is.

~

Inge and Melwyck talked excitedly about the German bombers during the return trip across the Flow but Kast, legs wedged against a back corner of the launch to maintain balance, remained apart. The wreck site and air raid made the war intensely real in a way he did not understand before and he glanced repeatedly at the tarp covered body near his feet, curious who the sailor was and what he thought his life would be in the last hours before it ended.

Kast knew only the horrific end of the man’s story, not whether the attack was a random act of war or the calculated design of espionage. Survivor accounts indicated the battleship spent its last day refueling for sea patrol the next morning. Past midnight a muffled explosion occurred near a forward storage room but the watch commander raised no alarm and most of the crew remained asleep, the side portholes open for fresh night air. A short time later two large explosions rocked the vessel amidships and ignited the main munitions magazine. Massive fireballs raced along interior corridors and incinerated sailors still in their hammocks. Other crew members thought an air raid ensued and fatefully ran to battle stations below deck rather than escape.

The ship quickly listed on its starboard side, submerging exit passages and life rafts and causing an electrical blackout. Sailors trapped beneath sealed decks, suddenly aware the ship sank, screamed and fought for their lives in utter darkness. The ship rolled, lay briefly upside down and slid beneath the surface in less than fifteen minutes. Most victims drowned, died from exposure in the frigid water or burned alive in a fiery oil slick from ruptured fuel tanks. The dead included dozens of seamen trainees not yet eighteen years old. Kast glanced once more at the tarp and silently promised the man an explanation.

Safely back on land Kast asked if he passed his Orkney water initiation.

Inge imitated his flailed, drunken stagger. Comical, really, a man your size.

A bitty iffy but you roughed on and didn’t hurl, added Melwyck. Many don’t or do. Credit for that. We’ve been remiss. Welcome to Orkney.

Inge drove a dated car still marked as a former taxi into Stromness, a small town built on slopes around a harbor on the northwest corner of the Flow. The serpentine main street wound along narrow passages and only an occasional bright red or blue door or storefront provided color among the austere, brooding gray granite buildings. Difficult angles, pedestrian traffic and home gardens planted haphazardly in the road frontage slowed progress.

Walter Scott hated these streets, said Melwyck. And he was, after all, a Scot.

He frowned when Kast did not react to his humor.

Inge parked opposite a side street down to the harbor and retrieved Kast’s travel bag from the boot. Best to end here. The hotel is only a bit.

He started down a winding close. Kast followed cautiously over uneven flag stones with his work satchel, surprised by the murky, shroud-like twilight just past four o’clock.

Time is different this far north, explained Melwyck. Be full dark in half an hour.

White paint marked curbs, utility poles and steps and several residents hung curtains or blankets over windows. A lorry with slit headlight covers approached and squeezed the men against opposite sides of the close.

Blackout regulations, said Melwyck. Had nary a bomb but many a wreck.

At the harbor small boats lined the wharf and fishermen tended nets, tackle and stacks of creels in the deepening gloom. The decayed smell of bait and fish traps mingled disagreeably with the thick, pungent scent of seawater. Kast paused by a sealed old stone well.

Captain Cook left from Stromness on several voyages, said Melwyck. Used that very well. Hudson Bay ships and whalers, too.

Cook the daring circumnavigator or Cook the half crazed island god?

You know your history. I like that.

Inge waited in front of a granite faced three story hotel framed by a Union Jack and blue Scottish national flag.

You don’t seem the Admiralty sort, said Melwyck. What part of the government is it?

Kast decided candor would build trust. Security Service.

MI-6 then?

Five.

Melwyck frowned, confused. Which is the difference?

Are you really a spook? asked Inge.

No, all the spooks are in MI-6.

Inge turned to Melwyck. Thought you said we caught a good one.

And how do you know we didn’t?

Embarrassed, Melwyck glanced at Kast. The Admiralty and the Board of Inquiry took most of the accommodation and transport. You were lucky to get a room and us a car.

What time tomorrow? asked Inge.

Seven.

Seven it is.

Inge left and Kast started up the steps with his travel bag but turned. Few people here will want to talk to an outsider. They will talk to you.

Melwyck nodded. Aye, a local flavor would help. Lived here all my life, I have. Know the people, the area, the water and when to button. I’d say you got lucky.

I need to know how the German got in and how he got out.

No shortage of ideas on that. Be glad to help.

Downstairs. One hour.

Cramped in his slant roofed top floor room, Kast moved the lone chair to the center and reviewed maps and reports spread across the bed.

The audacity of the Scapa Flow attack shocked the nation. Both the Prime Minister and the Admiralty previously proclaimed the harbor defenses satisfactory and King George VI visited on a well publicized preparedness tour only a week before the incident. Outraged by the embarrassment on home soil just six weeks into the war, Parliament demanded an immediate inquiry and many observers doubted the newly appointed First Sea Lord, Winston Churchill, would survive politically.

Claims German spies caused the disaster persisted despite public government denials. However, privately the War Cabinet ordered MI-5 to determine if espionage played a role and Kast departed London earlier that morning on a crowded RAF transport, an expendable but defiant pawn in a high stakes blame game within the government. Angered by loud allegations of lax harbor security, the Admiralty in turn accused MI-5 of a massive intelligence failure.

Kast received the assignment only because others refused and realized internal politics would render his findings malleable regardless of truth. He arrived in Scotland determined to seize the incident for himself, a final chance to reestablish worth and resurrect a disappointing career.

The hour passed and Kast went down to a pub filled with uniformed naval personnel and locals. Town ordinances kept Stromness dry so he sat unrequited at the bar and eavesdropped.

Most patrons expressed shock and anger at the attack but some seemed oddly detached, as if the battleship simply steamed away on a lengthy patrol. One man complained the incident cancelled a rivalry football match and another groused it closed the lone cinema in Kirkwall.

Kast understood. The apathy and denial reflected a deep, lingering national paralysis from horrendous casualties suffered twenty years earlier in The Great War but also posed a current danger. Although aware of the menace exuded by Hitler and willing to follow blackout guidelines and endure myriad disruptions in daily life, most Britons still refused the emotional or psychological commitment necessary to wage another war.

Melwyck entered with two grizzled fishermen, one thin and angular and the other short and squat in thick, worn sweaters. Both smelled of brine, old fish and engine oil.

Local sons of Orkney, said Melwyck. Scoundrels both but they know their business. Some people think them brothers.

Aye, he looks me brother, agreed the squat one. But not me myself, not ’tall.

Kast and the men moved to a corner table. I’m interested in what you might know, what you can tell me.

Reymund’s the brain, said the squat one. Ask him what it is you need. I’ll answer up occasional.

Reymund openly assessed Kast. We fish, have for a time. You’ve the face and hands of a working man but the bard here says you’re a spook.

Yes.

The fisherman waited. So you want to know how the boat was done? Simple enough, just figure the times. High water came shortly after eleven thirty and the tide moved incoming so the Jerry had favorable current. Slack began about midnight.

Slack?

Before the tide reverses the current stops. Dead water, the best time to force an entry.

For how long?

Fifteen minutes, maybe thirty or even an hour long. said the squat one. Depends where in the Flow.

Reymund continued. The tide ran unusually high that night but the water stayed calm. No moon. Good time for a sneak. I’d say he got in right after midnight.

Which entrance?

Holm Sound, most likely.

Kast recalled the name on a map. One of the three small channels closest to the attack.

Aye, said the squat one. Holm has a gap, wide and deep enough for a u-boat at tide.

What about the main entry at Hoxa?

Look what happened, see, said Reymund. "The Oak lay at north and was hit from starboard, means an easterly sighting for the Jerry. Holm is east."

Hoxa is guarded, the channels not, added the squat one. I’d say Holm.

Holm it was, said Reymund.

So the block ships do not work?

The squat fisherman shook his head. Not set proper, not enough ballast. The tides and storms move ‘em about. Cheap bastards, the Royal Navy.

Reymund leaned forward. The tidal race foams white against the hulls and the shore cables, too, practically a beacon in if you know where to look.

And the currents? asked Kast.

Tricky, a good six knots or more, said Reymund. But not at slack.

Kast glanced at Melwyck, an initial stir of adrenaline in his chest.

The first torpedo came just after one o’clock, continued Reymund. "Time enough to enter through Holm and get round the point into the Flow. The Oak was a duck on a pond."

You’d not reckoned it so clear had you, spook? asked the squat one.

Kast looked closely at Reymund. You seem certain.

No other way to be.

I think we’ve solved it for him, said the squat one. I’m hungry.

Is it possible the harbor patrol sank the u-boat on the way out? asked Kast.

Reymund shook his head. People talk but only a few boats went looking. No slick or debris. Nice thought but unlikely, I’d say.

Would the u-boat need assistance to get through the channel at Holm? Or could the captain navigate on the fly or use aerial photographs?

Me, I’d want local eyes, experienced. Too much to go wrong.

The local part is your job, spook, said the squat one. We done our bit.

Both fishermen rose and Reymund swatted Kast on the back.

Don’t worry, lad, he said. There’ll be no Jerries here permanent. One of their trawler captains who wintered over told me, ‘If you Scottish can stand this godforsaken place year round, you deserve to stay.’ What he said. They want no part of Orkney.

German trawlers stayed inside Scapa Flow?

Aye, the North Sea cod fleet. Last several years.

International relations, chimed the squat one. We made nice but now have to fight ‘em square up. The government again, you see.

So the Germans know about the gaps in the channels? Kast asked.

Reymund nodded. Not a secret. Some skippers use Holm as a shortcut on occasion. The local mail steamer does.

We’re off to find a criminal pint for ourselves, said the squat one. Good luck with it, spook. The fishermen left.

One other thing you should know,said Melwyck. Some prior refurbishment and salvage contracts for the harbor went to German owned companies which used local labor. My uncle worked as a fitter for one and knows.

Kast sat back, stunned the Admiralty allowed German contractors and trawlers inside Scapa Flow for any reason.

Melwyck stood and tipped his cap. Sorry to consternate but said I could help.

Kast remained at the table. An attack through Holm Sound at high tide matched the known sequence of facts and seemed simple and direct, like the two fishermen who saw it so clearly. An eastern entry also increased the likelihood of espionage if the u-boat required local assistance to navigate the channel. The blunt weight of truth edged into his mind, the first unraveling of the official Admiralty version.

Are you Kast?

A stern older man in an overcoat with a shiny black briefcase stood over him.

Who wants to know?

Hanlin, the RSLO. Meet me in front.

MI-5 divided the country into sections with a Regional Security Liaison Officer nominally in charge of investigations in each. Kast’s assignment direct from London made him an unwelcome intruder not under Hanlin’s authority or supervision.

Kast moved to the lobby and Hanlin followed a few minutes later.

You arrived this afternoon yet made no contact, said Hanlin. Why?

My work is limited.

Yet you are here nonetheless. Protocol exists for a reason. This is my region, my investigation.

Yours will be the official report.

And yours the one they read.

Hanlin looked at Kast. You’re not military, are you?

Colonial police.

Hanlin nodded, his disdain confirmed. I served in the Royal Field Artillery twenty one years, Security Service the last twelve. You?

Not that long.

They stepped outside and walked toward the wharf, separate shadows in the night.

Your assignment is quite simple, said Hanlin. Confirm the needed version of the incident and write the report. Your findings should mirror mine.

What if that version is wrong?

London is never wrong, a basic reality we all share. Do not deviate and do not be inventive or clever. Do your job and leave.

And the truth?

Hanlin sniffed. A moving target. In this case the truth is a u-boat followed one of our vessels through the main harbor defenses. A rogue attack, a basic torpedo job.

Not if the u-boat received local assistance.

The spy story is rubbish, pushed by Churchill to avoid Admiralty negligence and save his job. He does not protect his harbor then blames us. We will not stand for it.

Kast mentioned a civilian work crew which loaded flammable solvents in the bow compartment of the Royal Oak the day before the attack. Survivors stated an odd chemical smell preceded the larger blasts, possibly a sign of an accident or onboard sabotage.

A red herring, retorted Hanlin. We quarantined the boat and its crew but found nothing. Rumor and truth are seldom the same.

Hanlin flicked on a covered flashlight and removed two folders from his briefcase. The divers’ report of the wreck and a recent Admiralty assessment of the harbor defenses. Return both tomorrow.

He looked at Kast. Tell me, should I resent your presence or just your spying?

I am no spy.

Clearly.

Hanlin released the folders. Kast is German, isn’t it?

English.

Come now. Your father or his father must be German, am I right? Interesting. Keep me informed on your whereabouts. I expect cooperation.

Hanlin snapped the briefcase shut, flicked off the light and disappeared into the darkness.

Kast returned to the hotel lobby but decided not to telegram London and confirm his arrival, a courtesy he no longer felt obligated to make. There was no one else. His wife left a year earlier and would blame his unexpected trip to Orkney for delaying the next support payment for their young daughter, another layer in the physical and emotional walls between all three.

Angered by Hanlin’s overt disdain, Kast climbed the stairs to the room and did sets of pushups and isometrics until his shoulders and arms ached. The leftover boxing regimen blunted his emotions and emptied his mind and afterward he sat in the center of the room and opened the reports from Hanlin.

The divers’ survey found blast holes in the bow near the anchor chain, in the stern and just aft of amidship. The explosions forced the steel plating in and not out, a sign of external force, and divers recovered two tail sections and a motor plate from torpedoes of German design on the bottom near the ship. Large numbers of bodies remained onboard, some wedged grotesquely in portholes in a desperate last effort to reach the surface only a few meters away. Others lay stacked behind sealed interior hatches. Images of the swollen corpse in the launch and the other blackened bodies pulled from the cruel nets crowded his mind and his anger returned.

He opened the Admiralty assessment. Done seven months earlier, the study found the harbor defenses in poor condition due to chronic neglect and lack of maintenance. Local boats used to tend the booms and anti-submarine nets often failed to patrol and at times left the primary harbor entrances unguarded but the report recommended no remedial action in order not to provoke the Germans. A recent note indicated a new block ship for Holm Sound, delayed for months by a petty squabble over price, arrived in Scapa Flow the day after the sinking.

The report established the Admiralty knowingly ignored poor security at its primary North Sea base and made a cowardly decision to forgo improvements simply to avoid German reaction. The Royal Oak and its lost sailors became unnecessary victims, the latest casualties from a lack of national will and institutional neglect in the decade before the war.

Kast pulled open the blackout drapes, snatched the cardboard cover from the window and stood in the illuminated square, enraged and defiant against the blackness of the night.

Chapter 2

Kast remained vaguely awake until dawn, his mind stretched and restless from the prior day’s events. He met Inge and Melwyck in front of the hotel, his irritable mood mirrored by the depressing gray overcast.

You’ve a sour look, said Melwyck. Can’t be the drink. You had none.

Kast grumbled past and walked up the close to the main street and the car. Inge and Melwyck followed and drove Kast to the district constabulary in Kirkwall, Orkney’s largest town a few miles north of Scapa Flow on a large island locals obstinately called the Mainland. Registration laws required foreigners to provide current employment and address information to local police, a data source Kast often used as a start point to sift for enemy agents among the flood of immigrants and refugees fleeing hostilities on the continent. He obtained a list of nine local foreigners from an irascible desk sergeant.

We’ve no traitors in Orkney, none, declared the sergeant. I would know.

People always surprise.

That’s outsider talk.

Kast interviewed the first two people from the list. An elderly Austrian man, detained for years at an internment camp during the Great War, appeared frightened and repeatedly asked Kast not to send him away again. A milliner of Italian descent acted defiant but provided solid references and an alibi from his landlord. The third and fourth residents were welders away at jobs and not present on the night of the attack.

The fifth and sixth names belonged to an Alsatian watchmaker and his English wife who rented a small watchmaker’s shop down a steep close near the water. The shop appeared closed and no one answered the door at the living quarters on the downhill side. The three other people lived in small hamlets scattered across the islands.

Kast asked Inge and Melwyck to drive him to the Admiralty Board of Inquiry held inside a large Quonset hut overlooking the water. Two admirals and a captain from London presided, stern and aloof in impeccably gleaming uniforms among the unadorned, spartan surroundings. Melwyck whispered most locals thought the Admiralty condescending, arrogant and out of touch with the harsh rigors of life in Scapa Flow.

Small groups of glum Royal Oak survivors described the attack and how they escaped. Most still seemed angry, surprised and stunned. Officers stated the ship’s late commander had no opportunity to save the vessel but refused to abandon ship and gave his life jacket to an injured sailor. Deserved praise also went to the skipper of a supply tender who rescued nearly three hundred men from drowning despite peril to his own boat.

The Board did not mention the findings of the divers’ report but several crew members claimed they saw the conning tower of a u-boat in fire glow from the oil slick. However, most officers did not consider u-boats an actual threat inside the protected confines of Scapa Flow and some suggested air attack or sabotage as a more likely cause of the sinking.

Across the room, Hanlin stared pointedly at Kast when the Board questioned officers at length about conditions of the main entry booms at Hoxa Sound, the use of patrol vessels and the possibility a u-boat hid beneath a surface vessel as it entered.

Not convinced, after the session Kast asked Melwyck and Inge to take him to Holm Sound to determine if it held the truth. The car passed through the tiny hamlet of St. Mary’s, followed a patchwork of low fields grazed by sparse cattle and sheep and stopped in a lonely bend overlooking a narrow channel.

Kast walked the bleak shoreline against a cold, stiff wind. The murky grayness of the water, land and sky created a monochromatic, slightly disorienting environment. On his left the coast continued toward a small lighthouse on a rocky headland bordered by the open turbulence of the North Sea. On his right the channel elbowed back along a promontory and emptied into the broad interior of Scapa Flow. The green hilled rise of Hoy, where he watched the air raid the day before, marked the distant far edge of the Flow.

Two barren islets broke the sound into three narrow channels blocked by a line of three partially sunken steamships, their masts and funnels like uneven spikes driven into the water. In the closest channel the first ship, a small liner submerged to its superstructure and tilted slightly bow up and stern down, angled forward of the others and created a narrow gap on its far side.

The strong incoming tidal current hissed loudly past and foamed against the hulls and Kast initially thought Reymund mistaken, that no submarine could make the sharp turn into the gap and force the channel. However, the isolated location provided a perfect entry point and he instinctively knew the two fishermen were right.

He pictured the u-boat, a cold steel predator knifing through black midnight into the heart of the Royal Navy, so close his rock toss might hit and acknowledged grudging respect for the audacity and skill of the German captain since any mistake would strand the u-boat on the block ships or the iron cables in between. Such precise navigation required detailed knowledge of the channel and tides and the strong pull of instinct raised the ugly specter of espionage.

However, he realized he grasped only the edge of the mystery and turned into the battering wind and looked grimly toward the North Sea. Somewhere in those sheltering depths a u-boat exulted in the destruction of the Royal Oak and the deaths of his countrymen. Somewhere on land, perhaps nearby, the person who helped make it so breathed free. Kast found each thought equally unacceptable.

Melwyck stepped beside him. "Try not to take

Reviews for Mischief

[eloquent_codex · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A recommended book for readers interested in reading a fun urban fantasy novel about a musician set during an alternate 80’s where magic is prevalent. It contains a reimagined depiction of pixies, ghouls, and witches.Mischief is a novel with an intriguing magic system that is further complicated by the era of the 80’s. Pixies aren't cute fairies but masters of illusion content with blending with society except for the few that want to destroy all humans. Black pixies feed on the flesh of humans while ghouls need to feed on the dead flesh of humans. Meanwhile humans have established a police force to eradicate high profile creatures and users of magic. All of this combined with witches, an ancient evil, music, bad romances, and unlikely heroes. Mischief is a fun read with a great magic system, an interesting plot, complex characters, and an enjoyable portrayal of musicianship