The captain smoked in silence, peering at the horizon through his binoculars from time to time. Langsdorff’s shoulders were hunched from the stress of the last few days. Well, Max thought bitterly, they would soon have plenty of time to rest. A check of their bearing off Montevideo’s tallest building confirmed their position on the chart. “International waters now, Herr Kapitän.”
Langsdorff looked at him quizzically, as if he’d forgotten Max was there. “What?”
“We’re in international waters now, Herr Kapitän.”
“Very well.”
“Helmsman is standing by, sir.”
“Very well.”
Now they were out where the British could hit them with no warning and no repercussions, yet Langsdorff did nothing, only continued to stare absently ahead. The two British cruisers were probably no more than an hour’s steaming time from them. This was no time for melancholia.
Suddenly Langsdorff left the bridge and ducked into the small chartroom behind. He returned wearing his dress sword.
For God’s sake, Max thought.
Ahead of them the sun touched the horizon, its dying rays coloring the ship a deep pink. River wind blew through the bridge, wet and cool, stinking of fish and mud. Max felt it play across his face as he silently watched the captain.
“We’ll miss the deep-water channel if we don’t turn, Herr Kapitän.”
Langsdorff made no reply. Should Max order the helm changes himself? He understood the captain’s feelings—his own stomach was clenched tight with anger. Beneath his hand, Max felt the warm pitted steel of the ship—a ship that had given him so much. You couldn’t love a ship like a woman, but you could feel a gratitude for her, and Graf Spee had certainly earned that from him and the others. Old sailors said ships had a soul, and perhaps it was true, for it seemed to Max that Spee sensed her destiny and went to it slowly, haltingly, like the men who gave the orders.
“Herr Kapitän, we must turn. We must.”
Langsdorff drew the sword from its gilded scabbard, the silver blade gleaming in the last light of the sun. He said, “The All Highest himself gave me this sword when I was commissioned in 1912. I accepted it from his own hands. ‘I swear by God’s holy name that I will wear this sword with honor and courage, Your Imperial Highness.’ That is what I said to him.”
Max nodded. The wind blew over them both. “Herr Kapitän, we…”
Langsdorff thrust the shining sword back into the scabbard with a clang. “I know, Oberleutnant, I know. Right standard rudder. All ahead one-quarter speed.”
Max passed the order, then looked again at the captain, who seemed to have regained some of his composure. Graf Spee swung to starboard and the vibration picked up as the men in the engine room stepped up their revolutions.
Langsdorff watched carefully now, eyes darting from the compass to the channel markers. When the bow pointed directly upriver, the captain checked her turn and now the huge ship moved up the muddy river toward Buenos Aires.
They steamed in this direction for five minutes. A dazzling red sun, now just an orb on the horizon, seemed to float behind them. Langsdorff puffed his cigar and surveyed the water through his binoculars. “Any more information on the British warships?”
“B-Service reports that our observers have them about one hour south of our present position, maybe less, and closing at full speed, sir.”
The captain frowned. “Left standard rudder.”
Max repeated this order down the voicepipe to the helmsman. When the rudder bit, Graf Spee cut to the left and moved out of the ship channel.
“Stop engines.”
Max rang the engine telegraph and moved the needle to Stop Engines.
The gentle hum of the engines died away as they were disconnected from the propeller shafts. Spee glided softly as her way fell off. On the bow, Oberbootsmann Carls stood ready at the anchor controls.
“Let go fore,” Langsdorff ordered, now more in control of himself.
Max took up the megaphone and bellowed into it with his best quarterdeck voice: “Let go the bow anchors!” A loud splash echoed through the twilight, followed by the roar of the long black anchor chains playing out.
“Let go aft,” Langsdorff ordered.
Already Oberbootsmann Carls was running down the wooden deck to the ship’s stern. In a few seconds, Max heard the stern anchors splash into the Plata.
Calm descended over the ship. Captain Langsdorff glanced slowly around the deserted bridge, passing his eyes across the shining brass of the compass mountings, the soft green glow of the instrument lights, the river chart tacked to the chart table. Through the bridge windows, the sharp prow of Spee was still visible in the murky evening. “Finished with engines,” he whispered hoarsely, reluctant to say it.
Max picked up the engine room phone and gripped it tight, closing his eyes for a moment to master himself.
“Engine room, aye.” It was Dieter’s voice.
Max stared out into the gathering dark.
“Engine room, aye,” Dieter said again.
“Finished with engines,” Max said.
Dieter was silent for a moment and then replied quietly. “Finished with engines, aye-aye.”
It was the traditional order given at the end of every voyage. Max slammed the phone down.
The captain said, “Execute your orders, Oberleutnant.”
Max came to attention and saluted but didn’t speak, not trusting his voice to be steady. He descended to the main deck and found Dieter among the deckhands.
“All crew accounted for,” Dieter said, saluting.
Max saluted his friend, then turned and made for the main companionway. He began descending into the bowels of the ship as Dieter and the crewmen prepared the launch.
He moved quickly, like the others. If the British caught them in the launch in international waters, they could be taken prisoner. In the darkened interior of Graf Spee, the blue nightlights had come on, casting a lonely glow over the deserted corridors. Max followed the hoses down through the ship, making sure they were still in place. Satisfied, he lingered for a moment, looking around the abandoned interior. A lifejacket lay on the deck, dropped there by a careless sailor on his way out. Worse, a cigarette butt had been crushed out beside it. A cigarette butt. On the deck of his ship. By the Lord God and all the Holy Saints in heaven if he ever found the swine who had done that he would see the man got a month in the brig. He picked up the cigarette butt and put it in his pocket. Turning about, Max made his way up the flights of metal stairs to the top deck, his footsteps echoing through the emptiness of Graf Spee.
Back on the main deck, he signaled Emil to start the pump. The hoses plumped as they began to fill with the stinking diesel oil from the ship’s fuel bunkers. Oil ran through the hoses into the depths of the ship, where it would spill out in a viscous black puddle, spreading out like ink from an overturned inkwell. The noxious oil would splash down the narrow stairways, spill into cabins, into the crew spaces, and foul the once spotless decks of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.
When all the remaining crewmen had taken their places in the launch, Max heaved himself in, leaving on board only Dieter, who had to operate the crane, and Captain Langsdorff, who stood in lonely splendor on the deck in his sparkling white uniform, sword buckled at his side. Without speaking, the captain climbed into the launch, ignoring the outstretched hands of the men who offered to help him. He sat quietly in the rear, knuckles white on the hilt of his sword.
Max cupped his hands around his mouth. “Give way!” he shouted. Dieter put the crane in motion, gears grinding loudly in the peaceful evening. Without a bump, the launch came out of its chocks. Dieter maneuvered it over the river and gently lowered the boat till its bottom smacked the water. Two of the sailors started the motor but didn’t engage because they were still hooked to Spee by the rope from the crane. Dieter shimmied like a monkey down the heavy manila rope and dropped into the launch.
“Unhook,” Max ordered. A fl
ip of the release gear and they were free, drifting with the tide away from the ship. “Give way,” Max said, and the motor was engaged. One of the sailors took the rudder, swung the boat around, and headed downstream from Graf Spee.
Max looked intently at his watch, then at the sun almost below the horizon. After five minutes he ordered the launch halted, and when the motor was cut a terrible stillness came over them. Only the soft gurgling of the river could be heard. Max felt shame as he looked back at the ship, now a half kilometer away. She had been worthy of them but they had not been worthy of her and so she lay at lonely anchor, a defeated hulk of steel.
Langsdorff stood in the launch. Max and the others also came to their feet. Nineteen hundred and fifteen hours, Max could see from his watch. Sunset. A huge explosion rent Graf Spee as the torpedo warheads detonated in the magazines. The blast literally lifted the ship from the water. A series of smaller explosions then rippled through her hull, twisting and ripping her metal skin. The huge diesel tanks aft went up; first tongues of flame shot over the ship, then came the compressed force of a giant explosion that tossed the aft eleven-inch turret into the air like a child’s toy.
Max clenched his jaw. Langsdorff stood rigid beside him, hand to the visor of his cap in a naval salute. Max, too, saluted, as did the others. Several of the youngest crewmen began to raise their right arms in the Nazi salute. Max stared daggers at them and they quickly brought their palms to their foreheads in the navy salute.
Black smoke eddied around Graf Spee as the proud vessel settled into the water. The warheads in the magazines must have blown her bottom out. Fires on board heated the steel skin of the ship until it glowed orange. As the superheated hull sank into the muddy water of the Plata, clouds of steam rose hissing from the river. A vast tower of smoke and flame arched high over the sinking ship into the night sky.
The reflection of the fire danced red across the faces of the men in the launch. Max dropped his salute. Enough of this charade. Langsdorff had led them into a trap, and now the British had scared them into blowing up their own ship. Slowly Graf Spee listed to starboard and sank into the river. Steam and black smoke rose from the great warship until she disappeared, then nothing but the lingering smoke remained.
CHAPTER SIX
THE INDIAN OCEAN
DAY 390 OF THE CRUISE OF THE AUXILIARY MERCHANT RAIDER METEOR
FOUTTEEN MONTHS LATER
FEBRUARY 1941
MAX SLIPPED THE WHITE COAT OVER HIS DARK BLUE NAVAL TUNIC. The coat came to his knees. Two turns around his waist with the sash fastened it in place. Next came the round sunglasses, and finally the conical straw hat. From a distance—a great distance—Max hoped he would look Japanese. “You certainly have the buck teeth for it,” Dieter had told him.
The action alarm had died away by the time Max left his cabin. Unlike his spartan quarters on Graf Spee, officers on Meteor had spacious cabins with chintz curtains, large bathtubs, and deep carpet. All her passageways were carpeted, a remnant of prewar days, when Meteor had carried passengers and freight to South America for Norddeutscher Lloyd. The Kriegsmarine had converted her for commerce raiding in the shipyards at Bremen, but the work had been done on a tight schedule and many peacetime amenities—the soda fountain, the swimming pool, the reading room—had been left in place. The reading room with its hundreds of books, including a collection of Karl May’s western novels, Max’s favorite, became his sanctuary. Mareth had once given him a beautiful set of leather-bound Karl May novels, which he had taken with him on Graf Spee but had been forced to sell in Argentina because he needed money. He spent many of his off-duty hours alone in a club chair in the corner of the reading room, lost in the American frontier adventures of Old Shatterhand and his faithful Indian pal, Winnetou.
When Max reached the bridge, Captain Hauer looked him over but said nothing. Hauer was all navy—a regular like Max, but a man who adhered strictly to the conventions of the Imperial Navy, where captains did not speak to Oberleutnants and certainly not to Oberleutnants dressed in Japanese costume. In retrospect, Captain Langsdorff seemed a kindly uncle compared to Hauer, who suffered from both migraines and a nervous stomach, conditions that reflected themselves in his disposition.
Fregattenkapitän Breslau, the second in command, smiled when he saw Max. “Ah, the Mikado,” he said, making a slight bow.
Max grinned.
“We are gentlemen from Japan,” Breslau sang, quoting Gilbert and Sullivan.
“Well, I hope that through a pair of British binoculars I’ll look that way, sir.”
“I’m quite sure you will, Oberleutnant. Now be a good fellow and stroll around the deck with Felix.”
Breslau, a reservist, had been captain of a small passenger liner before the war and treated all his sailors like guests aboard his ship. “Be a good fellow,” he would say, or, “If you please,” or, “Would you be so kind.” When he spoke, however, he spoke with authority because his voice was as strong and deep as a foghorn. He could hail the masthead from the quarterdeck and be heard in a Force Ten gale, several of which he’d been through while commanding a sailing ship carrying wool from Australia in the twenties.
Breslau and Hauer made an odd pair, but there were many odd things about Meteor—grumbling, cliques, harsh looks, slack petty officers. Worse, she’d been more than a year at sea, her crew never setting foot on land in all that time. Small grievances became major conflicts among three hundred men, crowded together for more than a year in a ship half the size of Graf Spee, always alert for the enemy, always on short rations, with a captain whose severity would make a Prussian general proud. All the films aboard had been screened and rescreened till the men could parrot every line; the books that mentioned sex read till they fell apart; the swimming pool used until no one could bear the thought of swimming. Max had tried to organize a shuffleboard tournament like the one they’d had aboard Graf Spee, but the men, despite their boredom, had shown little interest. In the end, only he and Dieter had played. Max won.
“You cheated.”
“You need glasses.”
Perhaps Max and Dieter should not have been so excited when the chance to go aboard Meteor presented itself, but they weren’t about to sit out the entire war interned in Buenos Aires. Not that Dieter had been crushed by the months of idleness—he seemed to be on good terms with the madam of every private gentlemen’s club in the city and passed long nights in the finest of their establishments, cavorting with the girls, drinking champagne, and winning money from British expatriates at the card table. Because Argentina was a neutral country, the British and the Germans often encountered one another, interacting with icy politeness. Dieter found poker his best means of revenge against the Tommies; his mathematical mind made him a menace at cards. True to his nature, he spent the money as he won it: champagne and a generous tip for the tango band, champagne and gifts for the young ladies of the establishment, champagne and cigars for any German gentlemen who happened to be in the club that evening. He must have bought a thousand bottles of champagne for his friends and compatriots during their stay in Buenos Aires.
Max was less adventurous, but he enjoyed his freedom in the city as well. The Argentines made little effort to control the movements of the crew of Graf Spee, so Max spent long mornings wandering through Buenos Aires followed by long afternoons of reading on the Plaza de Mayo. But no amount of wandering could set his mind at ease; and for all his debauched exploits, Max knew that Dieter felt the same. It maddened them both to sit on their backsides in Argentina with their painful memories of Graf Spee’s scuttling while other Germans won the war. News of their victories never let up; everyone but Max and Dieter was off winning medals. France had fallen in June of 1940, after just six weeks of blitzkrieg—no surprise, Max’s father wrote, since the French preferred to eat cheese rather than wage war. The Wehrmacht defeated the Netherlands in a matter of days, then stopped off in Belgium long enough to accept surrender from the King, then on to Paris; the only bad news—the Briti
sh army had gotten clean away from France, evacuated from the beaches at Dunkirk by the damned Royal Navy, the Kriegsmarine too weak to interfere. But while the surface navy wrung its hands, the U-boat men were off sinking ships, receiving medals, getting promoted. Max felt ill with frustration when he heard that Wolfgang Lüth, one of his crewkameraden, had received command of a U-boat and had already won the Knight’s Cross for all the tonnage he had sent to the bottom. Fortunately, Seekriegsleitung needed its officers. They hadn’t enough to begin with, and as the fighting grew more intense, casualties worsened the problem. Well-trained regular officers were a precious asset, so the Naval War Staff and the German embassy began making the complex arrangements necessary to smuggle Graf Spee’s officers out of South America. Wattenberg, the senior navigation officer, went first, three months after their internment began, smuggled out on a fishing boat. Ascher went next. Carrying perfectly forged papers that identified him as a Portuguese businessman, he simply boarded a plane to Rio, took a ship to Lisbon, and then bought a seat on the regular Swedish Air flight to Berlin.
Six weeks after Ascher went, Diggins had his turn. The embassy procured false papers identifying him as an Argentine language professor scheduled to visit Japan to learn more about their language. Unfortunately, the Argentines caught him and he had to try three more times before he finally got away, smuggled aboard a Japanese freighter. Others had to do it the hard way: cross the Andes into Chile and dodge the Chilean police, who apparently had much better eyesight than the Argentine police. With so many officers spirited away, Max and Dieter were desperate to escape, so they jumped at the chance to go, even if the assignment was to an auxiliary surface raider skulking about in the Indian Ocean. At the end of September they left Buenos Aires in the trunk of the naval attaché’s automobile, spent a comfortable weekend at his country home memorizing the names of their contacts, then slipped away. They spent the next three months stealing from one German community to another across the pampas and over the border into Brazil, dodging local officials, sleeping in barns, straining to comprehend the dialect of the second-generation German immigrants who sheltered them. By the time the two friends reached Porto Alegre in late December and boarded Dresden, a freighter from the Secret Naval Supply Service, which would transport them to Meteor, they strained at the bit to get back into the war. But now they found themselves alone in a vast sea on a ship marked by tedium and discontent, Max dressed up like a vacationer from Osaka.
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