Sink or Capture! (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  There was the glitter of steel above the bulwark and Smith saw it was the blade of an axe, heard the chunk! as it severed one of the two side-ropes of the ladder so it sagged lopsidedly. The axe flashed again and cut the second rope. The ladder collapsed, falling onto and over the launch, wooden rungs clattering, men cursing as the rungs struck them. Altmark’s screws were turning again and she surged ahead as the launch veered away from her side.

  Smith watched her draw away then turned and went back to take the tiller. He followed Altmark south but diverged from her course at an angle to make for Chivers and the fishing boat, now dead in the water and ablaze from bow to stern.

  Kelso said, “Sorry, sir.”

  “Not your fault,” Smith told him. “You did very well.”

  “But of all the bloody luck! For that boat to catch fire just at the moment when —”

  “All right.” Smith broke in, silencing him. There was no sense in wasting time bemoaning lost opportunities. “Use that loudhailer of yours again. Tell Chivers I’m going to look for survivors and he is to follow us.”

  They were passing the second launch and the cutter now and Kelso bawled that message, voice echoing tinny from the megaphone. Chivers’ answering hail came: “Aye, aye!” The fishing boat was only a cable’s length ahead now and its towering flames lit the launch bright as noonday. Smith felt the heat from the fire scorching his face. He ordered Jackman, “Get the men out of that cabin and tell them to look out for survivors.” He thought bitterly that there was no point in them hiding now because Altmark was gone. As he glanced quickly that way he saw her blending into the darkness outside of the ring of light shed by the flames. Kelso had been right: bloody luck!

  The sea was on fire now, a growing pool of flame spreading out from the bow of the stricken fishing boat. The men lining the sides of the launch were holding their arms up to shield their faces from scorching. Smith altered course to swing around the outside of the pool and come no closer to the source of that blistering heat. As the launch passed down the side of the fishing boat he saw the fire on the surface of the water was edging aft but had not yet reached the stern. The after part of the boat itself, however, wheelhouse and mast, was a pyre with flames soaring higher than a house. And there was the blazing frame of what had been a small dinghy hanging from davits over the stern.

  Smith shouted, “Look out for heads in the water!” No one could have survived aboard the fishing boat nor in the lake of flames rapidly surrounding her. The dinghy had not been launched so if anyone had got off her alive he would be swimming in that narrowing neck of sea right astern and between the closing wings of fire. He would not be swimming long. Smith turned the bow of the launch into that smoke-wreathed neck.

  It was like entering an oven. The heat seared them all aboard the launch, had them gasping for breath in that airless tunnel running into the fire. The smoke caught at their lungs and set them coughing and the roar of the flames deafened them. So the call when it came back to Smith was choked and passed from man to man back along the length of the boat: “Swimmers off the starboard bow!” Smith saw the man standing in the bow, one arm lifted to shield his face from the heat, the other outstretched, pointing.

  Smith saw them and turned the launch. As it closed the swimmers he saw they were a group of three. One of them held on to something in the water to support himself — an oar? The other two were shoving at either end of it. The launch ran in alongside them, engine idling, and arms reached down to grab them and haul them out of the sea and inboard, starting with the man holding on to the oar. Smith quickly glanced around him and didn’t like what he saw.

  Kelso shouted above the crackling din of the fire, “It’s closing fast, sir!”

  Smith nodded. His way out was closing too fast. The burning sea had now locked around the stern of the fishing boat and was spreading still. The walls of flame towering on either side of him were sliding in. on the surface of the sea. The gateway between them and behind him was pinching in rapidly, would soon be gone. They had to get out and soon. In the last seconds the heat had intensified beyond what he had already thought insupportable. His face and hands burned, his eyes streamed tears that dried on the lids. But the three men were now aboard and another gasped message came back to him as the engine’s beat quickened again: “No more! That’s the whole crew!”

  Smith gave thanks for that. He shied away from the thought of leaving men to die in this hell but a further search would have put them all at risk. They might already have left it too late. He turned the launch tightly but even so she went closer still to the fire as she made that turn. The men had turned their backs to it and tried to protect hands and faces. The three survivors lay in the bottom of the boat, exhausted. The paint, both fresh and old, was blistering and peeling from the launch’s upperworks. In places the timbers smouldered and Buckley had got out a bailer, was dipping water from alongside to douse them. Jackman set other men to do the same.

  Then the launch straightened out from the turn and her stern dug in as the engine went full ahead. The way out of the flame-locked pocket was frighteningly narrow now. The walls of flame reached out for them in the boat and the heat gripped and tormented them for interminable seconds longer, sucking the air from their lungs, roasting them so they swayed and fell. Only Smith stayed upright, the tiller under his arm. Then they were out of it.

  Buckley dragged himself up from the bottom of the boat and croaked at Smith, “Are you all right, sir?” Smith nodded. Kelso was clambering up to drop heavily into his seat again, gasping. The prostrate bodies littering the boat stirred and rose. They leaned over the side to lave their faces with cupped handfuls of seawater. Until Jackman called huskily, “Come on you lot, you’ve had your time — get inboard.”

  They turned into the boat and he went to the survivors still lying on the bottom. Some of the men who had posed as crew on the foredeck of the launch stripped off the oilskins they wore and handed them to Jackman. He wrapped one around each of the survivors as he persuaded them to sit up. Seamen took two of them into the cabin but the third staggered aft to slump in the sternsheets beside Smith.

  Chivers, with the cutter in tow, was close now and Smith eased over the tiller to fall into station ahead of them. Then he looked at the man beside him, lit clearly by the flames from the fishing boat still blazing a cable’s length away and burned down to the waterline. He was tall and broad in the heavy clothing he wore, thick woollen jersey and trousers, that would have drowned him soon if he had not been pulled out of the sea. He had a full beard and his hair was grown long so it reached down to cover his collar. Both hair and beard dripped salt water. He studied the men in the boat and looked past Smith to the other launch and cutter astern. He obviously heard the orders barked by Jackman and the talk of the men as they tended the other two survivors, because when he spoke it was in English: “You are the captain?”

  “I am. David Smith. And you?”

  “I am captain also. Per Kosskull.” He held out his hand.

  Smith shook it. “You were unfortunate. That was petrol?” He jerked his head in the direction of the fishing boat.

  “Petrol, ya.” Kosskull nodded. “I was paid for bring this cargo from Bergen, better than for fish. I was going for my —” he searched for the phrase, then remembered “— home port, ya? Trondheim. Then there is the fire. Why? I don’t know, but I think one man, he smoke. Damn fool.” He threw up his hands. “But burn very quick. We try to get out boat but no time. Too hot, so we jump in the sea. Very happy when I see your boat.” He patted Smith’s arm.

  “Pleased to be able to help.” Smith thought he would have been better pleased if Per Kosskull’s boat had not wrecked a carefully planned operation when it was on the brink of success. But he commiserated, “I’m sorry you lost your boat.”

  Kosskull shrugged, “It was — insured — you understand? And I have another in Trondheim, motor boat like this but not so big. So I can fish still.”

  Smith said, “I understand. Yo
ur English is good.”

  “I was seaman ten years. Many times in English ships. I know English ports. And Royal Navy. I have seen many times.” He went on, not looking at Smith, “Before the fire I saw you alongside a ship. I think maybe it was a German ship with iron ore from Narvik. And now these —” he cocked a thumb at the armed men in the launch and then in the boats astern “ — with rifles. I think maybe my fire spoiled something for you.”

  Smith heard Kelso seated on his other side mutter under his breath, “Too bloody true!”

  Kosskull said, “This is sea of my country.” He stopped and groped for the right word but only came up with: “Place for no fighting.”

  Smith supplied the word for him: “Neutral.” Kosskull was no fool. Unfortunately. He knew very well that Smith and his men had attempted some action against Altmark in Norwegian waters, were still in those waters. It looked as though diplomatic cables concerning violation of neutrality would soon be flying between Oslo and London.

  Ben Kelso muttered again, “Throw the bugger back over the side!”

  But now Per Kosskull ran his hand along the blistered and peeling upperworks of the launch and turned to face Smith. “You came into the fire to get us. We will say nothing.”

  The signal was flashed to Cassandra somewhere out in the night and there came an answering wink of light. Smith pointed the bow of the launch towards it and headed out to sea. Some minutes later his ship lifted out of the darkness, at first a bare shadow without even the white blaze of a bow wave to mark her as she lay hove to. But then the shadow hardened, grew as they closed it, overhung them as the boats ran in alongside, rose and fell against the grey and rusting steel.

  Smith climbed up the waiting ladder and was met by a relieved Galloway. He gave the Executive Officer a brief account of the night’s failure — because that was how he saw it — as the survivors were hauled up one by one on a line and then taken below to the sick bay, the boats were hoisted inboard.

  Galloway said, “You had rotten luck, sir.”

  Smith did not answer that but said, “We’ll try again tomorrow.” Another way. There had to be another way. “We haven’t much time.”

  Galloway said without enthusiasm, “Altmark can’t stay in Norwegian waters forever, sir.”

  “She can until she’s in the Skagerrak. Then it will be too late.”

  “You think Jerry will come out to protect her, sir?”

  “He will. And he doesn’t have to use ships; U-boats will do. And there’ll be air cover from bases in Germany.” Galloway said doubtfully, drawing the word out, “Ye…es.”

  Smith eyed him. “You don’t consider that a threat?”

  Galloway shrugged, “The U-boats, yes, but aircraft? In theory, I know, they pose a threat, but it’s one thing practice-bombing an anchored wreck as a target. Hitting a manoeuvring ship that fires back is something else.”

  Smith recalled the bombing he had seen in Spain in the Civil War, the reports of the dive-bombing in Poland. He said harshly, “Not theory, John. In those waters without our own air cover we’d be a dead duck!” But he saw Galloway was not convinced.

  He called together the men of the intended boarding-parties from the launches and cutter. He scanned the dark mass of them in the night and told them, “It didn’t work but that wasn’t your fault. You all did well.” He thought that might make them feel a little better after the bitter disappointment of this night. But then an anonymous voice said, “You did pretty well yourself, sir.” And that brought laughter and a grumble of agreement.

  It heartened him. But his plan had failed. They had not rescued the prisoners from the Altmark. When he got to his sea cabin his hands started to shake in his usual reaction. He dragged off the oilskin and with fumbling fingers unbuckled the Colt.45 from around his waist. As he fell onto his bunk he thought, Tomorrow…Then he lifted his wrist, peered at the luminous dial of his watch and saw it was past midnight…Today I’ll try again. Another way…

  And as sleep claimed him: “Sarah…”

  6

  “It’s like a scene from a Christmas card,” Ben Kelso murmured it softly.

  It was two nights after the failed attempt to board Altmark and Smith sat again in the sternsheets of the motor launch. On either hand lifted snow-covered hills, dull silver in the moonlight. This was the Jössingfjord, near the southernmost point of Norway. The black boxes of houses were scattered here and there across the slopes, each marked by the yellow squares of lit windows. Smith thought Kelso’s description was apt, but the peace of the Jössingfjord had not long to live.

  He had not had another chance to act against Altmark. On the morning after he had tried to capture her he had met a Danish coaster bound for Trondheim and transferred Per Kosskull and his two-man crew to her. He also found a Norwegian patrol-boat cruising to seaward of Altmark, escorting her. All he could do was follow and wait on opportunity. That came when Philip Vian arrived this day, with his 4th Destroyer Flotilla and the cruiser Arethusa, hunting for Altmark.

  Vian, as Captain (D) commanding the flotilla, was in the destroyer Cossack. He was in wireless contact with Admiralty and Smith had reported Cassandra’s damaged wireless and her presence.

  He put himself under Vian’s command. Altmark had turned away at the sight of the destroyers and run into the Jossingfjord. Churchill was at the Admiralty now and at his order Vian was going to root her out.

  “She’s a beauty.” Kelso said it admiringly. He sat beside Smith and was there again in case his meagre knowledge of German and Norwegian were needed. He was talking of Cossack, leading the way now, two cables’ lengths ahead of the motor launch and on the port bow.

  “She is.” Smith nodded ready agreement. He could see her plainly in the light reflected from the snow. Set against that background, long, low and slender, slipping quietly through the ice-dotted waters of the fjord, she presented a picture in herself. He thought she was a lovely ship, but he would not exchange her for Cassandra.

  The Norwegian patrol-boats, there were two of them now, had refused to accompany Vian and tried to oppose his entering the fjord, but he had persuaded them that honour would be satisfied if they yielded to superior force. Now they lay astern at the entrance to the fjord. Altmark was hidden somewhere ahead.

  Cossack had an armed boarding-party of thirty men and three officers marshalled ready on her fo’c’sle. Smith carried in the launch the same twenty men he had taken two nights before under Jackman. They were tensed ready for action. He had told them before they went down into the boat, his voice harsh and urgent, “We’re going to bring out three hundred of our own, British seamen. This time nothing will stop us! Nothing!” And they knew this was not bragging nor bravado, understood the warning that lay behind the words. He and they would carry out the rescue even if few of them survived. And they found they were with him, would follow him.

  Buckley was there, of course. He had tried again to persuade Smith to stay aboard Cassandra and let Kelso or some other junior officer command the launch, and he had failed again. So he had grumbled and come along without orders. As he would have climbed into the boat with Smith even if ordered to stay aboard Cassandra himself. Smith grinned, feeling his face muscles numb with the cold.

  Kelso saw that grin and wondered, What the hell is so funny now? They could come under fire from Altmark at any moment. She had not used her rumoured 6-inch guns so far and that suggested the rumours were no more than that and she probably did not have any. Probably. But not certainly. Kelso thought, If she’s saved them for now and she’s waiting with them ready around the next corner …

  The fjord bent ahead of them and Cossack was starting into the turn now. Smith eased over the tiller and the bow of the launch came around, the next reach of the fjord slowly opening before them.

  The lookout right in the bow said quickly, “Christ! There she is!” And a fraction of a second later she came into Smith’s view. He saw her a piece at a time as if the headland he was rounding was a curtain being drawn
back. First the stern and the after superstructure were there, with the boats in their davits and the big single funnel, then the long well before the bridge superstructure lifted. Forward of that was another well and then the fo’c’sle. Now he saw her whole. She lay bows on to the shore and loomed huge in comparison with Cossack. Her grey hull stood stark black in the night against the snow slopes of the hills and the ice that locked her in on both sides. The channel she had smashed for herself through the ice was a ragged scar of white-seamed water like black marble.

  A searchlight’s beam lanced out from her, bathing Cossack’s bridge with light, meant to dazzle and blind Vian and the helmsman, the other men there. And Altmark came astern. Kelso yelled, “She’s trying to ram Cossack!” That was obvious. The big, black ship charged out of the lane in the ice stern first and under full power. For one awful second Smith thought the attempt was going to succeed and Cossack would be cut in half. But somehow her captain and navigator managed to turn her out of the way and Altmark missed her.

  She swept past Cossack and now bore down on the launch. Smith shoved it around in a tight turn to starboard as that huge stern rose like a house on his port bow. Kelso said, “Bloody hell!” Then the boat was rolling wildly and pitching in the wash as Altmark crashed past close alongside to port. She left them astern and with a deafening crunching and screeching smashed herself a new channel through the ice and snow on the right-hand shore of the fjord.