by Nigel Barley
“Russian, I think, a cruiser, light probably. Wait. One of three possibles.” He flipped pages wildy.
“Zhemteg,” pronounced Lauterbach tiredly, eyeing the cyrillic letters swarming over the bow. “We’re close enough now to read the bloody name.” He had got hospitably drunk on her once in Vladivostock on raw vodka, danced, sung and vomited over the rail. The captain was a good egg. Now he was about to repay his hospitality.
At three hundred, Franz Josef was at last allowed to let loose one of his pampered torpedoes. In the coffin-like bay beneath the deck the dials glowed, the electric contacts crackled and the needles danced behind their celluloid screens as the glorious word “Fire” flashed up as he had so often seen it in his dreams. He completed the contact and tore up to the deck to see the effect, fixing the trail as it shot across the gap between the two vessels and clutching the rail, trembling, like a boy finally losing his virginity.
Von Mueller was all crisply starched authority. “Starboard guns open fire. Rapid salvoes.” The guns blazed fire and thunder as the torpedo struck the Russian aft, more or less where Lauterbach had voided his stomach, detonating mightily and somehow lifting the whole vessel. He watched with the horrified relish of fear as the great guns swivelled and bore down on them but no answering fire came from the Russian. Their own shells riddled the superstructure and raked the decks, starting fires and explosions till her sides swiftly glowed red hot. Their captain was ashore with a lady friend and many of the crew promptly abandoned ship and sought to join him, swimming, grasping their caps in their hands. In the Russian navy there was no charge for losing your entire ship but they fined you a whole month’s pay if you lost your hat. While in port, their own torpedoes had been disarmed and only a dozen rounds were available for the guns and, then, when the sleeping Russians finally got one of them working, it simply strafed the friendly merchant vessels around her. But now other shells were flying overhead. There were French warships in there with a proper watch being kept and plenty of ordinance. Now that they should be smartly running off, the Emden’s response was to stop dead and begin to turn and manoeuvre with painfully slow engines and whirring screws. As the prow came round, the port side guns opened up and another of Franz Josef’s torpedoes swirled off towards the Russian foe. At first it seemed that nothing had happened.
“A bloody dud,” hissed Lauterbach, clenching his hands about his head.
Then a blaze of flame ripped abruptly through the ship, engulfing her in a pall of choking yellow and black smoke. Huge chunks of iron rained down, clanging onto their decks and skidding into the sea. They must have hit a magazine. A gust of wind cut through the billows of smog and she was revealed in naked agony, sliced in half. Only mastheads remained above the water.
“Flippin ‘eck.”
“Open fire on the merchantmen, sir?”
Von Mueller wheeled round, aghast. “Certainly not, Number One, we cannot be entirely assured of their nationality or the destination of their cargoes.” Lauterbach howled silently and gibbered at the sky. He life was in the hands of fools who wanted only to kill him.
“Torpedo boat at harbour entrance, sir.” Sure enough, there she was, small, grey-painted, billowing smoke and coming at them fast with menace. In the narrow space there would be no possibility of avoiding a torpedo. It would be lethal. Lauterbach had marked down the nearest lifebuoy. Now he began edging towards it. The Emden’s guns swivelled and fired as they charged. The torpedo boat scuttled out of their way, being, after all, only an unarmed vessel of the harbourmaster. But now they were already heading out of port at speed and did not dare turn yet again and sail towards a battle-ready, superior enemy. Cursing his ill fortune in passionate whispers, von Mueller ordered them to run for the open sea.
“Oh what bad luck, sir.” Lauterbach consoled cheerfully. His heart laughed. He was alive!
“Ship off the starboard bow, could be an auxiliary cruiser, sir.” Damn and Blast! No not an auxiliary – thank God – the Glenturret carrying explosives. Lauterbach set off, smirking, with a prize crew. This would make a very big bang indeed which would calm his nerves. Wait, no. Hold everything. Another ship out there. A French warship, the destroyer Mousquet. Lauterbach was called back as he was about to step into the boat, von Muecke cheerily waving from the bridge.
“Quick Lauterbach. A scrap at last. You wouldn’t want to miss this to save your life!”
The Emden opened fire at 4,700 yards and the French made their first and last mistake. Instead of attacking frontally, they turned to port, presenting their whole side to be raked with devastating fire. A hit on the boiler room and she was dead in the water, to be destroyed at leisure. After a dozen salvoes, her guns were silenced but no obvious attempt was made to surrender. Another ten were pumped into her and she sank, laying further concerns about her battle-readiness to rest.
Having tried to kill the French, they now sought to save them The men had never seen the horror of naval wounds before, the terrible burns, the limbs blasted off, the great holes that steel shrapnel would tear in soft human flesh so that a man’s entrails were tipped out hot into his hands. At last Schwabe had something useful to do, dressing crushed stumps and festering wounds agonised by immersion in seawater. Some of the younger ratings wept. They had never meant to do this. They had not known. They, mumblingly, brought humble gifts of chocolate and cigarettes to undo the harm done by shredding metal. Meanwhile the Frenchmen tried to escape their efforts to rescue them, swimming desperately away from their boats. They had been told the Germans massacred prisoners. Only one swimmer made it back to shore Many others drowned. Over the next days, von Muecke busied himself with honourable burials, heel-clicking, flags, trumpets, nice neat little ceremonies, speeches and three cheers for the Kaiser that reassured the men about the honourability and decorum of war. Military pomp and circumstance, Lauterbach saw, were simply something both sides put in place of an avoided issue. A little later, they took another British ship, unsinkable for its neutral cargo, and unloaded the prisoners and wounded Frenchmen into her for prompt hospital treatment. Their officer asked for an Emden hatband as a memento and was given one. Normally these were the souvenirs bestowed upon ladies.
“It seems that the French captain lost both his legs to one of our shells,” von Muecke explained lustily over dinner, eyes shining, to Lauterbach and eating with good appetite. “But had himself gallantly strapped to the bridge so he could go down with his ship rather than live with the dishonour of having seen some of his men dive over the side to save themselves. What a fine officer! And it was magnificent the way those men fought on and joyfully embraced death long after all hope of victory had been lost, simply for the glory of their nation. Pity, in a way, we came out of it untouched. There is nothing improves a fellow’s looks so much as a good, deep duelling scar.” He ran his fingertips lightly along the groove that scored along his own left cheek. “It is a sign, Lauterbach, that a man has honourably engaged the world.”
Lauterbach looked down and saw that his hands had begun to shake. He dropped knife and fork and gripped his own knees until the spasm passed. Again they had escaped death but it was moving ever closer, attracted towards them by the likes of von Muecke. He could feel it, see its shadow on the stairs. He saw not just the obscenity of torn bodies but, in the crew, a whole vision of those who died unwived, the unbegotten, the bereaved, the hole ripped by their deaths in the close-stitched fabric of history. As he took the potatoes, Lauterbach began to wonder seriously at just what point in an engagement he would be obliged to shoot Number One. Henceforth he would make sure to wear sidearms at action stations. He could pretend it was to save time in case of being ordered to form a boarding party.
“The only thing that puzzles me is that they mistook us till the very end for a British vessel, even allowing for all the confusion, the dark and so on.” Von Mueller chewed happily, sipped wine, swallowed, rapped militarily with his fork handle. “That shows bad seamanship. They could have sunk us if they’d gone about
it in proper fashion and not exposed their starboard side. One or two of their men even swore it happened because we were flying the white ensign, which is clearly not the case.” He threw his head back and sniggered. “As if we would!”
Lauterbach looked up and bit his lip. Ah yes. Another thing. That reminded him. He must get that damned flag back from Number Two Washboy, chop – bloody – chop.
The Cocos Keeling Islands only existed as a series of accumulated mistakes and misunderstandings in history. They lay well off the northwest coast of Australia in an otherwise determinedly blank, blue bit of the chart. In the early 19th century, an extraordinary and uxorious follower of Stamford Raffles, Alexander Hare, had used the coral atoll to dump his large polychrome collection of ladies and children before being – almost certainly – murdered by his own business partner. Over the years, the people had attuned themselves to the realities of an enforced servitude to the rapacious trading company that ran the plantations. Previously, the British had assumed overall responsibility for the place by mistake, having despatched a naval lieutenant to plant their flag on the other Cocos Islands strategically located off the coast of Siam. Afterwards, they were too embarrassed to admit their confusion and repudiate such a pointless and isolated possession of sand and rock. Yet, out of this mix of arrogance and error had emerged an unlikely convenience, for the Cocos Keeling Islands were the junction point of the undersea communication cables that held the whole British empire together – one to Mauritius, one to the Dutch East Indies and a third to Australia, the lot topped off with a powerful radio station central to the co-ordination of allied shipping.
Another coaling from the Buresk brought them to the Cocos where they were to meet the Exford, a captive British collier. From radio, they were comically amused to learn that the might of Portugal had declared war on them. Only Franz Josef was concerned at this development. After all, the Queen of Portugal was his sister.
“Mr Lauterbach, “ whispered von Mueller, sipping tea. “I have a special favour to ask of you. I imagine you know what it is?” The captain looked terrible. He had lost weight. Dark circles ringed his haggard eyes and the cheekbones were of almost oriental prominence. He had not left the bridge for days and half the shades were pulled down against a beating sun. No wonder the foreign Press liked to speak of him as Germany’s Flying Dutchman. A favour? Oh no. He knew at once. A suicidal attack on the British radio station. Even the British would not be so arrogant and stupid as to leave such a vital installation undefended. God knew how many troops they would have garrisoned there, dug in, well-armed, snug behind their machine guns, concrete bunkers and mines, aiming at a nice, big target like Lauterbach.
“No idea, sir.” He stood to attention, face locked.
“I have it in my mind that there is to be a real fight here and I know you are a man of determination and initiative and it is precisely for these qualities that I wish to ask of you the ultimate sacrifice.”
“Sir.” Suicide it was, then. He began to sweat. What should he do? Fall over the side and break a leg. No, shoot himself in the foot while handling unaccustomed weapons of land offence. Christ! That would hurt. With Schwabe as doctor, he could easily lose a leg. With gangrene in this climate he could die. Food poisoning, then He had some tincture of cloves in his cabin. Drink the whole bottle and he would go down with the runs and a fever. No. Best try half a bottle first, the other half he could do with acting.
“I have to ask you to leave the Emden for a civilian vessel, the Exford. You are aware how completely we are dependent on her coal out here in this part of the world. I need a man I can trust absolutely to survive, in command of that vessel, a man with the full weight of a captain’s experience and used to handling a Chinese crew. I know you are good with Chinese.”
Lauterbach exhaled in relief then seemed to catch something in the captain’s eye. Just what did he know? You always thought von Mueller knew everything, could look straight into your soul. Those eyes were mesmerising. Speech was always the most cumbrous and imprecise form of communication.
“Sir.”
“You will take her to a rendezvous off Socotra and wait until the end of November. If at the end of that time we do not appear, then it will mean … you are to surrender yourself at a Dutch port for internment.” It began to sink in.
“You mean, sir, I’m going to miss the whole show?” He couldn’t believe it. He was being sentenced to life. He stifled a laugh.
“I’m afraid so.” Von Mueller looked suddenly stern and irritated. “This is war Mr Lauterbach. We must all make sacrifices,” he murmered almost angrily. The tea trembled in his hand. Miniature waves crashed into the saucer. “Sail as soon as possible.” He turned away, back to his world of paper. The interview was over. Lauterbach was to go to the far end of the Indian Ocean and sail in peaceful circles and keep safe for the glory of the Fatherland.
“Sir.” He would have to move fast to get his comfy chairs aboard before they sailed.
To land from the sea on a tropical island is to repeat a primordial act of discovery. An island is a perfect world, complete in itself. It bears within it the theoretical possibility that, here, the laws of the universe are simply different, that they are benign and that innocent peace and enjoyment are the sum total of human experience. Diego Garcia had been the proof of it. Direction Island, in the Cocos-Keeling group, was to be the refutation.
The Emden had depended on luck and now that stock of luck was exhausted. It began badly. There was a large convoy of troopships on the way to Europe bringing men, horses and supplies from New Zealand to be shovelled into the great military furnace that was the Western front. A cargo of such vulnerability and strategic value required a warship escort and the British, Australian and Japanese navies had pooled resources to supply it. The Emden had monitored their coded Morse traffic all day. A skilled listener could tell a Marconi from a Telefunken transmitter, a military from a civilian operator and the strength of the signal could be used to estimate distance. The little ship operated in the knowledge that the allied fleet was a good 250 miles away, at the very least ten hours’ steaming. They did not know that HMS Sydney, faster and more heavily armoured and gunned than themselves, was a mere two hours distant and using its faulty radio transmitter at reduced power.
A squad of fifty men was mustered, drawn from the most experienced sailors. This land outing was regarded, after all, as something of a treat for old sweats, a relief from incarceration in a small vessel, a bit of a jaunt. The four machineguns were dug out and assembled. All the gunlayers were included in the landing party, making the ship particularly vulnerable during their absence An assault at night was judged too dangerous, given the rocks, but at first light, the ship manoeuvred into the harbour entrance, dropped anchor and released the boats. Since the weather was so calm, it was an opportunity, not to be missed, for coaling. The Buresk was summoned by radio from over the horizon, bringing a puzzled enquiry from Direction Island as to who was transmitting. Then the operator turned and looked out of his window and saw the great, white cruiser, lying still in the water with its guns pointing at him.
They could not believe that the station was completely undefended. Every shadow under the palm trees was a machinegun nest, every coconut lying on the sand a potential mine. But totally undefended is what it was. Nevertheless, while the Germans were planning and executing the military assault of the tranquil beach, the British operator had time to identify the Emden and transmit a cry for help to the world both by wireless and cable. They might have prevented this by shelling the installation from the sea but von Mueller had forbidden an unannounced attack on a civilian installation as ungentlemanly behaviour.
“The Emden is here! The Emden is …” And then the Germans really were there.
Von Muecke was sadly deprived of the hoped-for swashbuckling and derring-do. There was no passionate charge ashore under a hail of fire. The steam launch pulled the boats quietly into the lagoon and they tied up at the jetty as on a municipal bo
ating pond. The thirty-odd Brits shrugged on their kit and wandered down in canvas shoes, pipes gripped in their teeth, smiling and waving. They simply refused to behave like enemies being invaded by superior forces.
“Hallo, there. You don’t mind if I take a quick snap do you? Hold it. Oh do smile. Thanks awfully.”
“That machinegun looks frightfully heavy, can I give you a hand with it ashore? Would it help if I held the boat for you while you climb out? Careful now. Never do to fall in, not with Cecil and his camera there.”
Some sort of manager stepped forward, hand outstretched for shaking. He had a beard tended with the care some would have devoted to a flower border. “Welcome ashore. Lovely weather, isn’t it? We’ve been sort of expecting you. Oh by the way congratulations.”
Von Muecke was nonplussed. The men had their rifles waving about at nothing in particular or pointed at the ground. They were standing around not knowing what to do when they should be flat on their stomachs taking resolute aim. There could be snipers in those trees. One or two were accepting a drink of water. It could be poisoned.
“What? Who?” He looked around wildly. “Congratulations for what?”
“Your Iron Cross. Came over the blower yesterday. All you chaps on the Emden have been awarded the Iron Cross by Kaiser Bill. Oh, sorry, where are my manners? I’m Farrant, Head of Station.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “Not that we stand on ceremony much round here. All the chaps sort of just muck in, don’t yer know.”
Von Muecke shook his head to dispel this terrible matiness, stood to attention and started screaming in German.
“This station is now under the occupation of His Imperial Majesty’s forces and subject to military discipline …” He paused. “What class was the Iron Cross? One or Two?”
