Orphans of the Storm (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  So she dictated, roaming about her hotel room with a dry Martini as Sarah pounded away at the portable typewriter: “… British diplomats here are urging Uruguay to enforce the twenty-four hours rule under Articles 12, 14 and 17 of the Hague Convention of 1907, that Graf Spee should sail by eight p.m. (local time) today, twenty-four hours after entering the port. German consular officials, on the other hand, are also making representations and so far the Uruguayan authorities have stated Graf Spee can stay pending the report of a Uruguayan team sent aboard her to assess the extent of her damage. It is understood the two British cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, are patrolling outside and it is strongly rumoured that heavier forces in the way of capital ships are close by, just waiting for the German pocket battleship to come out.”

  She paused there because Sarah had stopped typing, was looking up at her. Sarah’s father was in a ship due to pass through those waters where another battle was to take place. Graf Spee had suffered thirty-six dead and an unknown number of wounded. It was reported that Exeter had been badly mauled in yesterday’s action. How many were killed aboard her? How many might die tomorrow?

  Hannah guessed at the girl’s thoughts that matched her own and said softly, “Don’t worry. He’ll be all right. I guess he’s pretty close now.”

  *

  Further north the weather was worsening but this suited Moehle and Brandenburg. Rain lashed against the bridge screen as the sun sank, hidden behind a low, leaden overcast. Brandenburg slowly closed the land that was lost in the murk with visibility down to a half-mile. Only a sprinkling of specks of light showed where a village or town stood.

  Kurt Larsen reported to his captain on the bridge and Moehle swung around on his high chair. “I want you to put Goetz ashore.” He nodded at the other man at his side, one of the merchant officers shipped for this raiding cruise because of their knowledge of the shipping lanes and ports. Goetz was into his fifties, a tubby, waddling man who had been mate of a freighter plying from Hamburg to this coast for the ten years prior to the war. He wore a non-regulation oilskin, open to show a darned blue sweater and checked serge trousers beneath. His round, red face split to show tobacco-stained teeth as he grinned at Kurt.

  Moehle went on, “The river is ten miles wide at its mouth but there is only the one small port on its southern shore. Goetz will show you where he wants to be landed. He knows where to find a trustworthy pilot in the town. He says we have a lot of friends there but we may have some enemies too, so I want you to escort him, unobtrusively, every step of the way. You’ll wear civilian clothes, of course. Understood?”

  An hour later Kurt, in raincoat and borrowed slouch hat, stood in the sternsheets of the launch as it closed the shore. The darkness was total here at the mouth of the estuary in the rain and the night. Further into the river the lights of the town showed yellow but the bow of the launch clove a black sea and drove in towards a thin white line of breaking surf.

  But Goetz seemed to know the place. He muttered, “It’s about here. This will do.”

  The surf was close now and the Bootsmannsmaat threw out the clutch. The launch slid into the surf with the way on her, motor idling. Then the two seamen in the bow jumped down into the river to stand with water washing about their thighs as they hauled the launch further up the shore.

  Kurt told the Bootsmannsmaat, “Wait here for us. We should be back in two hours at most.” He glanced at Goetz who nodded definitely. Kurt finished, “If we aren’t here by then, go back to the ship and report.” He thought, Because something will have gone badly wrong. He remembered when he had landed in Spain with the super-confident Fritsch. What a balls-up that had been!

  He walked up the beach with Goetz and then through tussocky grass until they came to a path that pointed towards the lights of the town. Soon they were on a dirt road, wide and wet but solid under a thin skin of mud, the crushed rock beneath hard-packed. So they soon came to the town and Goetz said, “He lives down by the harbour.” He was talking of the pilot and now he led Kurt through side-streets and alleys. The former merchant officer muttered in explanation, “Can’t be too careful, I suppose. The fewer people who see us, the better.”

  The river was in sight once again, lights reflecting from its black, oily flow, when they passed a bar. Its doors and windows were shut tight against the rain but Kurt could hear singing in his own tongue. Goetz jerked his head towards it, “Some of the boys.” He grinned, “Fancy a drink? It’s good German beer.”

  But they kept on until they came to a small, single-storeyed house almost on the quay. When Goetz knocked on the door it was opened by the pilot’s wife, small and lively, smiling and calling, “Hans! Gentlemen to see you on business!” She ushered them into the front room of the house, painfully neat and clean, unused except by visitors.

  Hans found them there and gaped at Goetz, “I thought you would be in Germany!”

  “I was.” Goetz roared with laughter, “But now I am here. Can you do a job?”

  He explained what he wanted and Hans, barrel-chested and thick-legged, brown-faced, said seriously, “It is a bad night.”

  But Goetz countered, “For us, it is a good one. Can you do it?”

  Hans shrugged, “Of course.”

  Ten minutes later the three were on their way to the launch, the pilot clutching a small attaché case. His wife had packed it with a change of clothing, a Thermos and sandwiches. She had complained, “What a night to have to work. But needs must.” She had kissed Hans like any other wife seeing her husband off to his toil. Goetz had winked at Kurt behind her back. Hans had told her the two were from an American merchantman in the estuary. She was ignorant of the presence of Brandenburg out there in the night.

  As they turned away from the river into the streets of the town Kurt saw, fifty yards away, a motorised barge or lighter casting off from the quay. Two men stood on her deck aft, bathed in the yellow glow from a light on the top of her wheelhouse. One of them sheltered from the rain under an umbrella and in his other hand carried what looked like a Gladstone bag. A third man, head and shoulders taller than the others, trotted along the quay and threw first the bow line, then that securing the stern, inboard. Then he jumped from the quay to land lightly on the barge’s deck with all the agility of youth. The light on top of the wheelhouse blinked out then and only her red and green navigation lamps showed on the black shadow of her low, boxy hull. She eased out from the shelter of the breakwater, rose and fell to the rollers marching in from the sea.

  Kurt strode after Goetz, leading the way with Hans. Brandenburg had her pilot but Kurt Larsen was uneasy.

  *

  It was midnight and Smith had thought he was locked in for the night but then the sentry unlocked the door to the cabin and flung it open. The young Leutnant stepped in over the coaming and said, “Orders of the Kapitän. Exercise now. Walk much. Maybe no more for two days.” He tossed an oilskin and hat to Smith, who dragged them on and started up the ladder, the Leutnant at his heels. At the first turn Smith glanced behind him and below. He saw Buckley and the French girl, both also clad in oilskins and coming up the ladder with the sentry behind them. The girl wisely wore her trousers again, the legs of them showing beneath the enveloping oilskin.

  Then Smith was out on the deck in the black night and driving rain. He heard Buckley’s deep rumble: “Who’d be a sailor on a night like this!” Smith strode out along his accustomed strip of deck and the young officer walked with him. He could not stand and watch Smith as he usually did; in a dozen strides he would have been lost in the night.

  Again, Smith peered about him from under the brim of the hat. The deck appeared to be empty but for the escorts and their prisoners. No lights showed aboard Brandenburg as she cruised slowly. It was difficult to tell in the night but Smith thought she was barely making steerage way. Or enough to keep station? There were lights to be seen over the bow, a distant rash of them that coalesced into a ribbon at the centre. How far? It was difficult to estimate because there was no horizo
n, dark sea blending into dark sky. Five miles away?

  But a port! Smith called up his recollection of the chart as he had studied it on Whitby’s bridge thirty-six hours before. What speed had Brandenburg made while running south since then? That morning he had estimated not more than ten. Now he knew the reason for her slow speed: Moehle had wanted to arrive here at nightfall, not before. And knowing the distance run, Smith thought he also knew which port was marked by those lights over the bow.

  Did Moehle hope to have his repairs carried out here? And planned to enter at night so Brandenburg’s presence would not be public knowledge until the next day? That way he might gain a few more hours of secrecy before the cruiser’s position was trumpeted abroad, but Smith thought Moehle was being wildly optimistic. You could not take a warship of this size into a small port, even at night, without the news flying through the town.

  He was warm inside the oilskin and realised he was setting a rapid pace in time with his thoughts, excitement building in him. And hope. In a neutral port Moehle would have to release his prisoners. Then he recalled the words of the young officer at his side: “No more exercise for two days.” They shattered his hopes. It was clear Moehle intended to deny he held any prisoners and to keep them under lock and key while he was in the port.

  The Leutnant said, “Come. Exercise over.” As Smith turned to follow him he heard the steady beat of the cruiser’s engines slow, then stop. The waist of the ship was filling with men on the port side and he saw a launch bucket out of the night and swing in towards that side. Then the young officer was standing aside for Smith to precede him down the ladders.

  Smith caught a glimpse of Buckley and the French girl coming towards him, she grappling with the voluminous folds of the oilskin wrapping itself around her legs and threatening to trip her. Then he was inside the door with the thrum of the fans around him and his heart thumping. As he picked his way carefully down the first flight he thought: There might be a better chance later. This is too risky. But then: There may not be another chance at all. So now. If everything went well …

  It did not.

  He walked along the short passage then turned at the head of the next ladder. Looking back he saw the Leutnant at the far end of the passage, following him. Buckley, Véronique Duclos and the sentry bringing up the rear, were not in his sight, still on the first ladder. Smith passed out of the Leutnant’s sight as he left the passage and started down the next flight. Halfway down he slipped and fell as he had that morning and the evening before. His yell of shock was cut short as he came to rest some six feet from the foot of the ladder. And he heard a shriek from above him.

  He lay still, tense, peering back up the ladder out of half-closed eyes. He had expected the Leutnant to come hurrying to his assistance, worried about his precious prisoner, when Smith planned to grab his legs and throw him to the bottom of the ladder. But the Leutnant did not appear. That shriek had come from the French girl. She had had some mishap and he had gone hurrying back along the passage to see to her.

  Smith swore, scrambled down the last steps to the flat at the bottom and snatched the fire extinguisher from its clips. He had to have a weapon. He ran back up the ladder, realising with increasing rage that he was slower now than in his youth, and he had just reached the head of the flight when the Leutnant appeared from the passage.

  He took the force of Smith’s impetus, the fire extinguisher slamming into him below the belt and he collapsed on his back, hands clasping his middle, mouth gaping silently, winded. Smith grabbed at the holstered pistol on the Leutnant’s belt and the young officer tried to shove his hands away but Smith tore the pistol free. He pointed it at the prostrate man then Véronique Duclos and Buckley showed at the foot of the first ladder. He saw them halt as they took in the Leutnant sprawling on the deck — and Smith’s pistol. He ran towards them, gesturing to them to pass by him, then as the sentry appeared behind them Smith thrust the pistol into his face.

  Barely a minute later the sentry and his officer were in the cabins and all three doors were locked. Smith, Buckley and the French girl had taken down the lifejackets from their hooks outside the cabins and put them on over their oilskins. Smith stuffed the Leutnant’s torch into the top of his lifejacket. They ran up the ladders until they stood at the steel door leading to the deck.

  Smith had learned that Véronique had tripped over the oilskin and fallen on the first ladder as he had suspected. He had only told her, “We’re going to escape. You don’t want to go to Germany.” She had shaken her head and that had sufficed to bring her this far. Now Smith explained, “We’ll have to swim. That’s why we have the lifejackets.” The girl only licked her lips nervously, then nodded. She had obviously worked that out. Smith went on, “We must keep to the starboard side, this side. On the other there will be men hoisting in the boat.” He hoped there would be none on this side, but that was unlikely. They were lucky not to have met anyone so far.

  Buckley put in, “I’ve got a line, sir. So we won’t have to jump.”

  Smith did not ask where he had got it; Buckley had obviously been doing some planning of his own. Smith opened the door and the light inside was switched off. He passed through and the others followed him. Brandenburg was still stopped, rolling gently to the swell. The waist still swarmed with men on the port side and he saw the launch appear above the rail, swinging from the jib of the crane. There were some men on this starboard side but he saw them only as black silhouettes against the darkness. He and the other two would look the same, clothed in the anonymity of the night. Even the French girl was just a baggy oilskin made corpulent by the lifejacket, a hat jammed on top of all.

  He led the way aft, seeking seclusion and found it in the deeper shadow cast by the aftermost turret. Buckley made fast one end of the line to a stanchion and dropped the rest over the side. Smith said, “You go first.” So Buckley swung his legs over the rail then started down the line, hand over hand.

  Seconds later Smith felt the line go slack as the weight came off it and he pushed the French girl towards it, put it in her hands. She hesitated for a moment, and Smith thought that well she might, staring down at the heaving, black, foam-flecked sea below. But then she went over the rail and down. Smith followed her and found both paddling near the line.

  He gasped at the chill of the water, then raged at Buckley, “Why the hell are you hanging about here!”

  Buckley started to answer, “Waiting for you—” But Smith cut him off and at his urging they all struck out together, swimming away from the ship. They were barely in time. They had gone only thirty or forty yards when Brandenburg got under way, her propellers thrashing the sea into foam at her stern as she moved ahead. If the swimmers had still been close by her side they would have been drawn into the screws and cut to pieces.

  Buckley saw that, and the reason for Smith’s anger, and why he had gone last down the line: to give Buckley and the girl the best chance. Buckley wondered if the French girl knew the awful death she had escaped by seconds. He hoped not, for the sake of her peace of mind.

  Brandenburg was heading northward and Smith thought that course would take her away from the port on the southern shore and out to the middle of the estuary. Was she looking for some deep-water channel? The dark bulk of the cruiser receded, blended into the night, could be traced only by the white line of her wake, then that was gone and the sea was empty. For the first time he wondered if there were sharks in these waters, then told himself it was now too late to worry. He called to the others and they all started to swim towards the distant lights that they could only see when a wave lifted them, disappeared when they slid down into a trough. They looked to be a long way off.

  Chapter Eleven – “Who would think to find us here?”

  Jake Tyler stood in the wheelhouse of the lighter Mary Ellen, peering over the wheel and through the rain-splattered glass. He and Garrity had just ferried the doctor across from the port to the little quarry compound on the northern shore of the river. The d
octor was answering a wirelessed emergency call from the quarry’s hospital, that only had nursing staff. The Mary Ellen had set him ashore on the jetty and then turned around.

  Garrity had let Jake take the wheel on the way over because Mike said he had to entertain the doctor in the little saloon below. He did it with a bottle of Scotch. But the doctor had refused to drink more than two stiff ones in case he had to operate, so Mike did most of the drinking. He was still below now on the return passage, entertaining himself. That suited Jake; the wheelhouse roof leaked to drum on his oilskins and its ill-fitting rattling door let in whistling draughts but he felt happier having the helm when Garrity had been drinking.

  Jake’s night vision was good but the glass was a distorting factor and the rain restricted and blurred visibility. Sometimes he could barely see past the covered hold to the bow, and at others he saw only a humped and oily sea through a curtain of rain. He was unconcerned. He was steering a compass course back to the port and in a few minutes would see its lights. He did not have to worry about traffic on the river, another vessel. He reminded himself that only two ships put into this one-horse port each month and neither was due. All he had to look out for were the lights …

  Then he saw it. He thought he saw it. There was an eddy in the wind or a split-second’s pause in the downpour and there was the other ship crossing ahead of the Mary Ellen.

  He assumed it was a ship, out there. He saw no bow, just a lift of superstructure like an apartment block, then a gun turret — a gun turret? Then it was gone. There was only the rain driving across ahead of him and running down the windows of the wheelhouse.

  Should he call Garrity? To show him — what? And tell Mike he had seen — But he wasn’t sure what he had seen. It had come and gone in the blink of an eye. Had he imagined it? Jake hesitated, as the Mary Ellen began to buck under him and he thought absently that the sea was rising out here in the middle of the estuary. The lighter butted into it, bow soaring and plunging.