iron pirate

by Unknown Author

  The SS Port St Clair, a freighter of some 8,000 tons outward bound from Sierra Leone, had the second vessel in tow. It was a slow, painful passage, with the other ship yawing out clumsily until she seemed to be overtaking, before veering back again with all the maddening alterations of course and speed until they were under command once more.

  The first mate of the leading ship watched his captain, who was standing out on the bridge wing, staring astern at their companion. It was almost funny, when you thought about it. Both the captains were rivals of many years, and yet that same rivalry seemed to join them more persistently than any tow-line.

  The other ship, the SS Dunedin Pioneer, had joined the convoy with them at Freetown, but after a few days had broken down with engine trouble. It was hardly surprising, the mate thought, she was probably older than he was.

  The convoy escorts had been unwilling to leave them astern of the main body of twelve ships on passage for Liverpool. At any other time the senior naval officer would have ordered the Port St Clair, with her precious cargo of rice, New Zealand butter and meat, to keep station and leave the other ship to fend for herself until a tug could be sent from somewhere, or a hungry U-boat had found her.

  But the rivalry, which over the years had often been akin to hatred, had carried the day.

  The mate considered the news. A German raider at large in the Atlantic again. The navy had probably got it all wrong. The enemy warship had either returned to base, or had already clashed with Allied patrol's.

  If was a strange feeling to be out here, alone, on such a fine day. Soon the Atlantic would show its other face, but by then they would have turned round, and be on their way back to the sunshine and New Zealand.

  He walked out on to the bridge wing and waited for the master to notice him. The latter had his stained cap tilted over his eyes as he watched the tow lift from the water, hesitate and then dip into it again.

  He remarked, 'Bloody old cow.'

  The mate replied, 'What about the raider?'

  The master rubbed his bristled chin. He would not shave until they crossed the Liverpool Bar. There was no point in shaving while there was a chance of being blown up.

  They had passed the Cape Verde Islands to starboard in the night, and tomorrow, or maybe the next day, would meet with ships of the screening squadron. Cruisers from Simonstown, it was said.

  Half to himself he said, 'Should have left the old bugger.' He turned and eyed the mate cheerfully. 'If there is a raider, and that I doubt, it's a comfort to know that the convoy will run smack into it before we do! Justice for leaving us behind!' He chuckled.

  The mate agreed and rested his hands on the rail, but withdrew them instantly with a curse. The bridge was like an oven. But you could keep Liverpool. A sailor's town, they said. Blackouts, air raids, and tarts outside the clubs who looked as if every one of those sailors had had a go at them. You could keep it.

  Steam spurted from the ship astern, wavered around her poop and then faded away.

  The master said unfeelingly, 'If his Chief can't gel her going, I'll low the sod all the way. That'll give him something to bite on!'

  A whistle shrilled and the mate walked into the wheelhouse and hauled a little brass cylinder up the tube from the radio-room .

  He returned to the glare and said sharply, Intercepted a signal. Convoy's under attack. German raider.' They stared at each other and the master hurried to the chart-room abaft the wheel-house and snapped, Give it here. Where the bloody hell are they?'

  He did not speak again until he had plotted the convoy's approximate course and bearing on the chart. 'Call up Dunedin Pioneer.' He held him with a grim stare. 'On the lamp. Tell him.

  He may not have picked it up on that relic he calls a receiver.'

  Alone in the chart-room he stared at the chart. It was worn and stained. So many convoys, too many risks, and always a target for torpedoes and bombs.

  It must be serious, he thought. He pictured the other ships as they had weighed anchor and had formed into two lines with the destroyer escorts bustling around them like sheep dogs.

  The mate came back, breathing hard. They were all used to danger, and both the master and mate had already been torpedoed in other ships and knew the margin of survival. The U-boat, the most hated and most feared of any war machine. The unseen killer.

  The master looked at his second-in-command. 'Rouse the lads, Hob. Have the gun manned, and set two more lookouts.'

  The gun was mounted aft on the poop, an elderly four-inch weapon from another war.

  This was something else, he thought. A raider, one of their bloody cruisers. How could she get through the patrols at this stage of the game, he wondered? The invasion was said to be going better than anyone had dared to hope - a newspaper in Freetown had proclaimed big advances all along the front. No longer beachheads, not just another wild hope; they were going all out for a grand slam.

  He heard some of his men clambering up ladders and protesting at the call to arms. He gave a tight smile. They might soon have something to moan about.

  He looked at the sky. A few clouds, but it was clear, washed-out blue. And it was another eight hours to dusk. He glared at the ship astern through the chart-roorn scuttle. Six knots. Without her dragging along like a sick elephant, they could increase speed, go it alone if need be. They would stand a better chance.

  The mate and the second mate entered the chart-room and watched him without speaking. The second mate was just a kid, wet behind the ears, but he was learning.

  'Look.' The master eyed them gravely. This bugger might come our way. But she's more likely to stand off before the screening squadron comes down on'em like a ton of bricks.' He

  stared hard at the chart. 'It's like being blind and deaf.'

  The mate asked, 'Can't we make a run for it?'

  'Is that what you'd do?'

  The second mate said, 'We could turn back, sir '

  The master smiled. Sir. That showed how green he was.

  He said, 'Can't leave the Dunedin Pioneer. He wouldn't cut and run if it was us.'

  They looked at each other for support while the ship noises intruded. Usually they gave confidence. Now they seemed to represent their sudden vulnerability.

  The master exclaimed angrily, 'No, sod 'em, we'll keep going as we are.'

  There was a clang from aft and he strode out to the sunlight again to watch as the four-inch gun trained round on its mounting. Fat lot of use that would be against a bloody cruiser, he thought. But some of the seamen saw him and grinned up at the bridge. For some peculiar reason the old captain wished he had shaved, that his cap cover was crisp and white like those bloody RN characters.

  The second mate clambered on to the bridge and said, 'Call from the tow, sir. Will be getting up steam in fifteen minutes,'

  They all breathed out and the master said, 'Tell the silly bugger to get a move on.' He hid his relief from the others. 'And about bloody time!'

  It was just minutes later that a seaman called, 'There's a plane, sir!'

  'What? Where away?' The master strode through the wheel-house and out on to the other wing. 'Why can't you learn to report the thing properly?' He ignored the lookout's resentment and raised his massive binoculars.

  An aircraft. Out here. Hundreds of miles from anywhere. It could not be hostile. Maybe they were looking for them? To tell them to alter course, or to rendezvous with a tug. They'd get a surprise when the other ship cast off the tow and began pouring out her usual foul smoke, the bane of every escort commander.

  He saw the sunlight glint on the little aircraft and stared at it until it misted over.

  He said flatly, 'It's a Jerry.'

  The second mate said, 'But it's too far

  The master turned away. 'From the raider. Call up Dunedin

  Pioneer right now. Then tell Sparks to prepare the emergency signal

  But it was already too late even for that. As the little toylike aircraft cruised back and forth against the pale sky, the
horizon's mist seemed to raise itself like a frail curtain.

  They saw the blurred flashes, almost lost in the fierce sunlight. The master waited, counting the seconds, until with a terrifying screech the salvo fell close astern, the white columns bursting high above the ships before cascading down in a torrent of spray and smoke.

  The old captain shouted, 'Send that signal! Plain language, tell the bloody world! Am under attack by German raider!'

  The next salvo shrieked down from the sky and he felt the hull shake as if it had run aground. He staggered to the rail and peered aft. It was almost impossible to see anything through the smoke, but the other vessel was still there,, standing away at right-angles. The tow must have been slipped, or had parted in the explosions.

  Then he stared incredulously at a solid, black shape as it rolled over and began to sink. It was their own stern, the useless four-pounder pointing at the sky, its crew nowhere to be seen.

  He seized the rail and yelled, 'Sway out the boats! Abandon ship! What the hell is Sparks doing?'

  Glass shivered from the wheelhouse windows and men fell kicking and screaming under a fusillade of glass and wood splinters. The ship had stopped, her holds already flooding as bulkheads burst open and turned the engine-room into an inferno of scalding steam.

  Another earsplitting screech, and the shells burst alongside and on the foredeck.

  The master slid down the bridge wing, his eyes glazed with agony while he tried to call out. His mind recorded the crash of falling derricks, the savage roar of water through the hull below, and the fact he could not move for the pain. He was still staring at the top of the bridge canvas-dodgers when the sea boiled over the edge and swamped the wheelhouse as the ship plunged to the bottom.

  Then there was silence, as if the whole world had been rendered speechless.

  Aboard the other ship, the men on the bridge and along her rust-streaked decks, stared dumbly across the empty sea towards the horizon. Like beasts waiting for the inevitable slaughter for their own execution.

  But nothing happened. Even the tiny aircraft had disappeared.

  The master crossed the bridge and peered at the carpet of oil, the rising litter of fragments which spread across the swell in a great obscene stain.

  Around him his men stood like statues, shocked beyond words or movement.

  Then the master said, 'Lower a boat. Mister. Fast as you can.' He made himself stare at the floating pieces, all that was left of his old enemy. His best friend. He added brokenly, 'Seems they've no time for us, the bastards!'

  As if to mock him the engine began to pound again.

  'Stop engines!' Acting-Commodore James Cook Hemrose sat stiff-backed in his bridge chair and surveyed what was left of the convoy. A battlefield. A junk yard.

  The commander stood beside him as the way went off the ship, and the endless litter of wreckage, bodies and pieces of men parted across the Wiltshire's high stem.

  Half a mile astern, her signal lamp flashing like a diamond eye, the New Zealand light cruiser Pallas followed reluctantly amongst the remains.

  The convoy had scattered at the last moment when the first salvoes must have come crashing down. Hammers of hell, Hemrose thought bitterly.

  'Stand by to lower boats!'

  Hemrose trained his binoculars across the sea, hating the stench of escaping fuel oil and burned paintwork. A few figures floated or splashed amongst the filth, their bodies shining and pitiful in the oil. There were more corpses than living, but it was worth a try.

  'Signal Pallas to cover us, Toby.'

  The lamp clattered again. Even it sounded subdued.

  A distant voice called, 'Lower away!' That was one of the whalers. The motorboat was all ready to slip from her falls, the surgeon in the cockpit with one of his SBA's.

  He looked long and hard at a black line which lifted and dipped above the water like a crippled submarine. It was the keel of one of the escorting destroyers. Of a corvette there was no trace at all.

  Another destroyer had escaped without a scratch and was now lashed alongside a listing tramp-steamer, hoses dousing some fires while men passed back and forth with stretchets and inert bundles. An oil tanker was awash, but still afloat, her engines ,md pumps working manfully to keep her going. Some wag had hoisted a Union Flag on the stump of her remaining mast.

  The commander returned and watched the light cruiser increasing speed to circle around the scene of pain and death, her pale hull streaked with oil like an additional waterline.

  Hemrose said savagely, 'Whole convoy wiped out except for these pathetic remnants!' He pounded the arm of his chair with his fist. 'All they needed was another day. The escort group was on the way from Gib, and three destroyers from Bermuda and us.'

  The commander stared at the drifting filth and spreadeagled corpses. Some of them wore naval uniforms, or bits of them. It was like being with them, part of them. He resisted the urge to shiver. Even Hemrose must know that they would have stood no chance either.

  The Admiralty had confirmed that the raider was Prinz Luitpold, and fresh details came in every hour. He watched his superior, suddenly glad that he did not share his responsibility.

  Hemrose watched the boat coxswains signalling to one another with their shortened, personal semaphore. He knew what the commander was thinking. It made it worse. If Wiltshire had been on the spot, she might have scored a lucky hit, enough to cripple I he bastard, or at least slow him down.

  Now the German could be anywhere. He thought of the signals, and the information from the lone freighter Dunedin Pioneer which had been left untouched. Somebody aboard that poor ship, a spectator to the total destruction of the one which had been towing her, had kept his head. Had reported seeing the enemy's faint silhouette as she headed away at full speed to the southwest.

  The commander had asked, 'Give chase, sir?'

  Hemrose had studied his charts wdth the navigating and cypher officers for an hour while they had steamed at full speed towards the convoy's last position.

  The raider had steamed away without sinking the Dunedin Pioneer. There had to be a reason. Now as he watched the oil-streaked boats picking their way amongst the human remains, he went over it again for the hundredth time.

  Give chase. To where? To the coastline of Brazil, or back along the same course?

  It had certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons, he thought. Every available ship was under orders. A nightmare for the Admiralty and the Allied Command. There must be no let-up in the lines of supply to the armies in France. The Channel was filled with vessels of every kind, carrying fuel and ammunition, transport and the precious cargo of men to replace the convoys which passed them on the way back. The wounded and the dying.

  According to the latest intelligence there were seventeen major convoys at sea. Well escorted for the most part, but to resist U-boat and bombing attacks, not a bloody great cruiser like Prinz Luitpold.

  Hemrose still could not fathom how it had happened. The RAF recce boys had reported that after the battle near Bear Island, Prinz Luitpold had been seen and photographed back at her lair in Bod$. It did not make any sense. Somebody's head would be on the block over it, but it offered no satisfaction for all this horror. He pictured the pandemonium in Whitehall. It made a change for them to be under siege. First the flying-bombs, then the massive V-2 rockets. The Allied HQ which controlled the Normandy invasion would be worried too. You could not ignore a raider, any raider. Convoys had to be diverted, held up, cancelled altogether.

  Hemrose glanced around the open bridge, the intent figures and anxious faces. A midshipman was retching into his handkerchief as he stared at the bobbing remains which surrounded the tall hull.

  Hemrose rasped, 'Get off my bridge, damn you, until you can act like a man!'

  It was cruel and unfair. Hemrose knew it but did not care.

  There was a third cruiser coming at full speed to join his little group. They should meet up with her in two days, unless . . . He said to the commander, 1 wan
t a full team on this, Toby. The paymaster-commander, even the bloody chaplain. See to it."

  The man's words came back to him and he heard himself say, 'Give chase - I don't think so, Toby. He had a reason for letting the Dunedin Pioneer stay afloat. He wanted her to see him steam ,iway, to report his course.' It felt easier now that he had decided. No, I reckon he changed direction as soon as he was clear of all I his. Get the convoy lists, and we'll study the chart. Outguess the bastard.' He eyed him grimly. 'It's up to us. As I see it, Toby, we'll get precious little advice from their lordships just now.' He wrinkled his nose. 'Signal a recall to the boats and we'll get under way.

  that destroyer can stand by the survivors until the escort group turns up.'

  He heard one of the boats creaking up to the davits and felt the commander let out a sigh. No U-boats were reported in their vicinity. But if they could miss a big cruiser there was no point in .aiding to the risks.

  The deck began to tremble and the Pallas headed round to take station astern again.

  When the third cruiser joined them it would make all the difference. He looked down from the bridge and saw the first survivors being led away, wrapped in oil-sodden blankets. There did not seem to be many of them, he thought.

  Resume course, cruising speed, Toby.' He settled back in the ( hair. 'Send for a brandy. I need to think about this one.'

  Astern, the listless ships, and the great span of oil and fragments seemed to fill the horizon.

  For Hemrose the war had suddenly become a personal one.

  It was like fighting free from a nightmare, only to discover that it was real. Even the overhead light, although it was partly screened by some kind of curtain, had a hard, unreal shape. Cold and still, like death.

  The man lay motionless, his hands balled into fists at his sides while he waited for his senses to return, or to fade again and leave him in peace.

  In tiny fragments his mind recorded that he was suspended in some kind of cot, high-sided and white. He felt the surge of panic. A coffin.