iron pirate

by Unknown Author

  'Steady on zero-six-zero, sir!' The voice-pipe from the wheel-house was unattended and Hechler saw a petty officer lying dead against the flag lockers. There was not a mark on him, but his contorted face told its own story. Hechler thrust a man into his place.

  'Tell the wheelhouse to remain on course.' He slipped on blood and trained his binoculars on the other ship. She was listing badly,

  Flames bursting through her side as if from jets. The last internal explosion had found her heart.

  Engine-room request permission to reduce speed, Captain!'

  What is it, Chief?' Hechler pressed the phone under his cap.

  Stuck's voice was very steady. 'Pump trouble. Nothing we can't fix. I'm still waiting for reports. That last shell

  Hechler did not wait. 'Half speed, all engines.' A massive explosion rolled across the water, and fragments of steel and timber mined down until every trough seemed full of charred flotsam.

  A man cried, 'She's going!'

  Some smaller shells exploded close to the capsizing ship, and Hechler snatched up the gunnery handset, suddenly remembering Gudegast's despair. 'Shift target to the convoy!' It was not a rebuke for the gunnery officer, but it sounded like one.

  The two forward turrets were already training round, seeking their targets. But the ships were scattering in several directions; each one was a separate attack.

  In the armoured conning tower Gudegast had his face pressed against an observation slit. The Prinz had been hit, how badly he did notknow. He could hear the intercom chattering, the stream of demands and orders as the damage-control parties swung into action. Gudegast had felt the explosion come right through the deck plates. As if they had hit a reef. Now all he could see was smoke, some small running figures by a dangling motorboat, cut in halves as it hung from its davits.

  All he could think of was the sinking liner. The old Tasmania, of the Cunard White Star Line. He had seen her many times when she had been taken off her Atlantic runs to do some cruising in and around the lovely fjords of Norway. He had even been on board her once for an officer's birthday.

  He could see her clearly, so different from his own timber ship. Spotless, well-laid decks, passengers drifting about with cameras, the elegance, the style of the liner and what she represented. He watched, sickened, as she rolled heavily on to her side, another funnel tearing adrift. There were more explosions, and Gudegast thought for a moment that Kroll was still directing guns on her.

  He shouted wildly, 'Leave her! She can't hurt you now! Leave her alone, you bloody bastard!'

  His assistants watched anxiously from the rear, their eyes glowing in the reflected explosions through the narrow slits.

  Gudegast pressed a button and felt icy rain on his face as the massive steel door slid to one side.

  He clambered out on to the little catwalk and then without realising what he was doing, removed his cap.

  A ship had just been destroyed because fools had sent her to war.

  He wiped his face with his sleeve. And she died with that same old dignity he had always admired so much.

  Peter Younger knelt on the floor of the storeroom where the prisoners had been locked up for the night, and pressed his eye to a hole in the wall where a bolt had rusted away.

  It was early morning and he heard some of the German sailors calling to each other. He found it hard to tell if they were angry exchanges or not.

  Old Shiner sat with his narrow shoulders against the wall, idly watching the young radio officer's eyes in the filtered sunlight. 'They'm makin' a bloody row,' he said irritably. 'Couldn't sleep 'cause of it.'

  Younger ground his jaws together as he concentrated on his tiny viewr of the station.

  He said, 'They broke open a stock of booze, that's what all the racket's about.'

  He should have guessed that something of the sort might happen. As soon as the false signal had been made, the prisoners had been herded together. It was as if the Germans had to let off steam, now the reality of their position was out in the open. Celebrating their part in the plot, or commiserating together at the prospect of early captivity he did not know, but he cursed himself for not taking precautions.

  Mason, the man in charge of the station, dropped down beside him.

  It's too late then?' He sounded wary after Younger's outburst during the night, when he had told them what he was going to do. Mason had asked then, 'How do you know all this anyway?' Younger had exploded. 'We were bloody prisoners aboard the raider, that's how!'

  He said, 'I must try. There's still a chance we might save a few lives, or call our blokes down on the krauts.'

  Old Shiner said, 'If they don't open the bloody door I'm goin' to drop my trousers right now!'

  Younger closed his eyes and thrust his forehead against the warm metal until he could think properly again. Poor old Shiner was halfway round the bend. He looked at Mason. 'When the guard unlocks the door we'll grab him and get his gun.'

  Old Shiner remarked, 'Accordin' to the Geneva Convention we should 'ave proper toilet arrangements. I seen it in a book somewhere.'

  Mason stared at him. 'God Almighty!'

  Younger persisted, 'Are you with me?' He nearly said, or are you like your chum over there who sent the signal under the German's supervision? But he needed Mason. He was the only one now.

  Mason nodded unhappily. 'It'll be the end of us, you know that?'

  Younger shrugged. 'I'm not going to think about it.'

  He stood up and walked to the corrugated door. The others would probably let him get on with it, watch him gunned down to join the dead mechanic.

  Like the shutter in a camera he saw the drifting lifeboat for a split second. The patient, eyeless faces. The very horror of it. He glanced at Old Shiner. Poor bastard. He had been torpedoed and sunk so many times it was a wonder he was still breathing.

  Mason said quietly, 'I'll try.' He sounded terrified, as if he could barely get the words out.

  Younger touched his arm. 'Once inside the transmitting-room

  I'll have a signal off before you can blink.' He was amazed he could speak so confidently, when he had not even seen inside the place. It might already be out of action, smashed by the Germans after raising the trick alarm. He decided against that. Germans or not, they were all sailors. No sailor was ever keen to sever a possible lifeline.

  Mason exclaimed, 'He's coming He pressed himself to the wall and whispered, 'Jesus!'

  Younger tested the weight of the makeshift club in his hand. It was a length of firewood, probably left at the station for the winter months. It was not much, but the guard might be half-cut from the night's drinking. He thought of the balding senior operator. Obviously his sense of discipline was no longer shared by his companions. He held his breath until his temples throbbed as the man fumbled with the padlock and tried several times to insert a key. Younger heard him curse, and the clatter of the padlock as it fell on the rock floor.

  Please God, let it work! He flung his weight against the door, it flew back and thudded heavily against the guard's skull as he stooped down to recover the padlock.

  It all happened in seconds, and yet it lasted forever. The man's face squinting up in the sunlight, blood seeping down his face from the blow, then jerking back as Younger slammed his sea-boot into his gaping jaw. He did not recall how many times he brought the heavy piece of wood down on his head, but it was running with blood and torn skin as he threw it aside and wrenched the sub-machine gun from the man's shoulder.

  Then he was running towards the rough ladder, expecting at any second to hear a challenge, feel the agony of a bullet between his shoulders. He heard Mason panting behind him, sobbing and muttering to himself as he followed.

  At the top of the short ladder Younger turned for a quick glance. The shutter again. The sprawled sailor, and some terrified faces peering from the storeroom. Younger felt his heart breaking as he looked at the sea. So vast and impersonal, and suddenly without hostility.

  It was all over. His ship,
his friends, everything.

  With a cry he kicked open the door and saw the German with the plastered arm staring at him, a mug of something in his free hand. Several things happened at once. The German lunged for his holster, which was dangling from a chair; Younger squeezed the trigger, but stared aghast as the gun remained silent. Safety catch. He fumbled for it, dimly aware that the German had dragged out his pistol, and that Mason was on his knees behind a packing case, burbling incoherently and in tears of terror. Something blurred across Younger's vision and he saw a heavy iron bar smash down on the man's plastered arm to crack it like a carrot.

  The German dropped his pistol and fell to the floor, his lip bitten through as the pain exploded in his shattered arm.

  Old Shiner, his washed-out eyes blazing wildly, stepped further into the room and swung the long bar once more. It must have la ken all his strength, but the German lay quite still, probably dead. Old Shiner tossed the bar aside and snatched the submachine gun from Younger and snorted, 'Yew'm never took a DEMS course like me. 'Ere, I'll keep them buggers off!'

  With a gasp Younger sat down before the transmitter, his heart pumping as with a purr of power he switched it on. It was not so different from the one he had trained on. He dashed the sweat, or were they tears, from his eyes, and concentrated every fibre on the key. He knew most of the abbreviated codes issued by the navy. They needed to in Atlantic convoys, with ship after ship falling out of line, falling astern for the wolves. He blinked hard. Like Radnor Star.

  He pressed the headphones over his ears and managed to hold the new sounds at bay. Sudden shouts, the blast on a whistle.

  He came out in a rush of sweat. The signal was already being acknowledged. He grinned uncontrollably at the key. You're the one who's too late, Baldyl He was thinking of the senior operator, who probably wondered what the hell was happening.

  There was a rattle of machine-gun fire and a line of holes punched through the wall, so that dusty sunlight cut across the room like thin bars.

  Old Shiner had the door open just an inch and the room filled with smoke as he fired a long burst down the slope.

  'Got one o' the buggers!' He was laughing as he crossed to the opposite side. Neither of them even noticed that Mason, the unwilling volunteer, had already been killed by the first shots.

  Younger heard Old Shiner cursing as he snatched up the other German's pistol. He must have emptied a whole magazine in one go.

  Younger winced as more shots crashed through the room and some exploded the dials and fuses at the top of the transmitter.

  Too late. Too late. The words seemed to deafen the clatter of small arms fire, the occasional heavy bang as Old Shiner took a potshot at someone below the building.

  More crashes, and the transmitter went dead. Younger threw the earphones on the bench and swung round. We did if!' But the old boatswain did not hear him. He sat lopsided against the wall, blood seeping through his tattered jersey. His eyes were tightly closed, like those last moments in the lifeboat.

  A window shattered and he stared without comprehension at a heavy cudgel-shaped object as it fell at his feet. He had not, of course, ever seen a German hand-grenade before.

  His mind had just time to record that Old Shiner even had his arms cradled, as he had been when he had nursed his cat, when the grenade exploded and there was only darkness.

  There was less smoke now and Hechler guessed that the firefighting parties had doused most of the flames between decks.

  Voice-pipes chattered incessantly until Froebe shouted, 'Damage-control, sir!'

  Hechler jammed the telephone to his ear while he watched the dead petty officer being dragged away. The man with the glass-flayed face had already gone; only his blood remained, spreading and thinning in the steady rain.

  Theil said, 'A fluke shell, sir.' Someone was screaming in the background. 'A shot in a million.'

  Hechler watched the smoke spiralling above the broken screen.

  'Tell me.'

  Theil explained in his flat, impersonal tone. One of the armed merchant cruiser's last eight-inch shells had plummeted down to pierce the battery deck between the bridge and Turret Bruno. As Theil had said, it was a chance in a million. It had struck the air shaft of a mushroom ventilator and been deflected through the armoured deck before exploding against a magazine shaft. Sixteen men of the damage-control party there had been killed. In such a confined space it was not surprising. But it was a double disaster. The explosion had severely damaged the training mechanism of Turret Bruno. Until the damage could be put right, the whole turret was immobile. It could not even be trained by manual power.

  Hechler considered the facts as Theil described them. The engine-room was confident that all pumps would be working again at full power within the hour. Casualties elsewhere were confined to the bridge, and two seamen who had been putting out a small fire below the funnel. They must have been blasted over the side without anyone seeing them go.

  Report to me when you have completed your inspection.'

  Froebe whispered, 'The admiral, sir.'

  Leitner seemed to materialise on the bridge like a white spectre.

  'What the hell is happening?' He glared through the trapped smoke, his shoulders dark with rain. 'I am not a bloody mind-reader!'

  Hechler looked at him coldly. 'B Turret is out of commission, sir. We've lost nineteen men killed, and three injured.' He glanced at the blood. It had almost been washed away now. 'One man was blinded.'

  ‘I do not hear you What are you saying?' Leitner strode from one side to the other, his shoes crunching over broken glass. 'We have lost the convoy - don't you understand anything?'

  Hechler looked up as Froebe called, 'New course is two-three-zero, sir.'

  Hechler said, 'We have to turn, sir. Radar reports three tankers sunk and two, possibly three escorts as well.'

  I don't care!' Leitner was beside himself with rage, and did not even notice the astonished watchkeepers around him. 'Three tankers! A pinprick! We should have taken the whole convoy.'

  Jaeger waited for Leitner to rush to the opposite side and stammered, 'W/T office has picked up a signal from the radio station, sir.'

  Hechler eyed him calmly, although his nerves were screaming.

  'Well?'

  'They are not sure, sir. But it seems as if another operator has disclaimed the first signal. Now there is only silence.'

  'Steady on two-three-zero, sir. All engines half-speed ahead.'

  Leitner was suddenly facing him, his face streaming with rain.

  'What was that? Am I to be told nothing by these idiots?'

  Hechler replied, 'The information will doubtless have been sent to your bridge, sir.' He tried to contain his patience, when all he wanted to do was discover how badly the Prinz was damaged.

  'It means that somebody on St Jorge took over the transmitter.

  Had it been any earlier we would have had to abandon the whole convoy. I

  Leitner thrust his face so close he could smell the brandy. I don't want your snivelling excuses! I'll have those men court-martialled and shot, and I'll personally break the officer responsible for the landing party!'

  Hechler stood back, sickened. 'It was a risk. We knew it. It might have been worse.'

  'Worse? WorseT Leitner waved his arms at the bridge. I don't see that! A relic of a merchant ship stood against Prinz Luitpold, and because of someone's incompetence we had to withdraw! By God, Hechler, I'll not be a laughing-stock because of it! Do you know what I call it?'

  Hechler pressed his hands to his sides. He wanted to hit Leitner, to keep on hitting him. A laughing-stock, was that all he saw in it? Men killed, and this fine ship isolated and at bay because of his haphazard orders.

  'I call it cowardice! In the face of the enemy - what do you think of thatT

  'I can only disagree, sir.'

  'Can you indeed.' He stared around the bridge. 'There are some who will live long enough to regret this day!' He stormed off the bridge and Froebe hissed
, 'I'm no coward, damn him!'

  Hechler ignored him. 'Recall the Arado. Tell W/T to monitor every signal. We have roused a hornets' nest.'

  He looked round, surprised, as sunlight broke through the dull clouds. 'And I want the navigating officer here at once.'

  There was no point in wondering about the hand on the transmitter. It was probably as dead as the men trapped below when the shell had exploded amongst them.

  A messenger handed him a telephone. Leitner's voice was quite controlled again. It could have been someone else entirely.

  'We will rendezvous at the second grid-point. It will be safer than heading north right away.'

  'Very well, sir.' Why don't I argue with him? Tell him that we are wasting sea miles and precious time. Steer north and take the risk. It would be 900 miles closer to home. But even as he thought it, Hechler knew it was fruitless. Leitner was unstable in his present mood. All he could think of was their failure to destroy the whole convoy, the effect it might have on his own reputation. He had made it quite clear that he would see that all blame would rest elsewhere. On the captain's shoulders, no doubt, Hechler was quietly surprised that the realisation did not touch him.

  What they had achieved this tar, they had done well. The courage and sacrifice of that one old liner had shifted the balance,

  I rom offensive to the need for survival. That was war. It was also luck.

  He heard Gudegast's seaboots crunching over the glass and turned to face him.

  You've heard about St Jorge?'

  Gudegast met his gaze, troubled and wary. 'Yes, sir. The whole ship has.' He seemed to expect anger, even dismissal,

  Hechler said quietly, 'You were right, Josef. She was a fine old lady.'

  Gudegast's bearded features softened. 'No, I was a fool to question your actions. It was not my place to speak as I did.'

  Hechler looked up at the rain. A man had died here, another had been blinded, just feet away. It could have been me.

  He said, 'My guess is that the Tommies are on their way to St Jorge, or were until that last signal was sent. It will give us some sea-room, I think. Maybe our admiral is right to head for the second rendezvous. It will keep us out of the air patrols, and I think that the hunters will be expecting us to head for the North Atlantic without further delay.'