Princess Elizabeth's Spy(102)

“I know, it’s a filthy habit.” David tried to smile, coming up with a box of matches, from the Langham Hotel in London.

“A wonderful habit!” Maggie cried. “ ‘How about a little fire, Scarecrow?’ ” She winked at Lilibet, forcing gaiety for the girl’s sake.

David took the thin gray sheets from the beds and placed them in the corner. “Well, ladies,” he said as he tried to light the wooden match. It was too hard with the briefcase.

“I’ll do it,” Maggie said, and she took the match and the box from him, lit the match, and threw it into the bedding, “I really hope this sets off a boat-wide sprinkler system and forces this sub to surface. Otherwise …”

The match smoldered, but then the flame caught. The fire burned brightly and the small cell was filled with smoke and heat.

If the sprinklers didn’t extinguish the flames, they’d be burned to a crisp within minutes—that is, if they didn’t suffocate from smoke inhalation. “Come on, come on,” Maggie muttered. I don’t want to die like this. Not on a sub, in a fire. I want to die at age a hundred and one, in my own bed, surrounded by grown children and fat grandbabies.… The lights went out and dim red emergency lighting came on. An alarm sounded a series of low wails.

It was a long, long moment, but eventually the ceiling sprinkler began to trickle, then splutter, then finally spray water. The fire belched smoke, then sizzled out.

Maggie, Lilibet, and David waited, in silence broken only by the keen of the alarm. Finally, after what felt like several lifetimes, they felt the U-boat move. They held hands and swallowed hard as the sub seemed to rise up, up, up—their ears popping—to what they could only hope was the surface of the water.

Without warning, a crewmember in gray coveralls opened the door to the cell. His face was mottled with rage. “Was ist—”

David swung his briefcase, which hit the sailor square in the jaw. He crumpled to the floor, unable to finish his sentence. David stumbled as he recovered his balance. “Oh, that felt good.”

“Come on, Lilibet,” Maggie urged, taking the girl’s hand, all senses straining. They made their way down the dark, narrow corridor. Red lights blinked at them and steam hissed through pipes.

Lilibet tripped and fell, letting out a small yelp.

“Come on!” David said.

Lilibet looked up at Maggie, her face white. “My foot. I think it’s broken.”

Oh, Gods, what now? What more can we endure? But there was no time to lose. Just as she did at Camp Spook, Maggie hoisted Lilibet up and into a fireman’s carry. “You weigh less than Molly Stickler,” she panted, taking off in a trot as fast as she could.

“Who?” Lilibet asked.

“A girl from long ago and far away.” Maggie was grateful for her morning regime of sit-ups and push-ups and all the early-morning runs she’d taken since those muddy days at Camp Spook.

The submarine’s emergency sirens continued to wail. Maggie, carrying Lilibet, and David retraced their steps back to the ladder that led back up to the hatch. Over the intercom, they heard, “Die Gefangenen sind geflohen! Die Gefangenen sind geflohen!”

“They’re saying ‘The prisoners have escaped!’ ” Maggie gasped.

“Oh, hell,” David said. “So much for stealth.”

He climbed the narrow gray-painted ladder to the hatch and wrestled with it until it opened. They had predicted correctly. The fire safety system had caused the captain to take the boat to the surface.

Then Maggie, breathing heavily, but not slowing down, went up the ladder first, helping Lilibet. With his free hand, David helped the young Princess when she emerged. Outside, on the hull, they all drew great breaths of cold fresh air, watching the frothy whitecaps crest on the gray waves, illuminated by the rising sun. The channel was rough and the U-boat bobbed in the choppy water like a child’s bath toy.

“Do we have a plan?” Lilibet asked.

Oh, Your Highness, if only we did. “Let’s climb to the top of the sail,” Maggie said, sounding surprisingly reasonable as she felt the sweat in her hair start to freeze. At least they’d be farther from the hatch that way.

Maggie, helping a limping Lilibet, and David all scrambled over the top of the hull until they reached the sail. They climbed up yet another long, thin ladder to reach the highest peak of the sub.

Cold, damp winds gusted around them. They held on to the railing of the sail for dear life—David muttering curse words, Lilibet with her mouth set in a grim line, and Maggie, fighting panic, trying desperately to think of a next step. While she was overwhelmingly grateful for an escape from inside the submarine that had seemed impossible, being up on the sail of a Nazi sub in the middle of the gray-green North Sea didn’t seem all that much better.