A Ship Must Die (1981) (16 page)

Fairfax watched him, moved and troubled by his words.

‘Can I ask? D’you still believe there are two raiders?’

Blake eyed him gravely. ‘I’m not sure. I’m certain of one thing only. We’re going to finish him or them!’

He beckoned to Moon. ‘You do the shaving. I’ll probably cut my throat, I’m shaking so badly!’

As Fairfax moved to the door he called after him, ‘There’s not much I can say. Thank you sounds too feeble for what you did, for what it might have cost you. Whoever eventually gets command of
Andromeda
will be damn lucky to have you, too.’ He tried to grin. ‘I shall bloody well tell him so!’

Fairfax walked from the cabin, nodding to the marine sentry outside the door.

He heard the murmur of voices from the wardroom, the clatter of plates as the stewards prepared to serve the officers’ lunch.

The motion felt easier as the ship headed towards her proper station, and Fairfax recalled the relief in Weir’s voice when he had ordered a return to cruising speed.

He walked briskly along the upper deck, past a small
working party who were lashing the yellow dinghy to the boat tier like a trophy.

Fairfax thought of the girl’s face as she had been helped aboard, the way Blake had spoken of her.

He would tell Sarah about it. She would have had them hitched in no time if Blake had been unmarried.

The tannoy squeaked and then intoned, ‘Cooks to the galley! Senior hands of messes to muster for rum!’

He climbed swiftly to the upper bridge, past the lookouts and signalmen and the massive bulk of Toby Jug with his old-fashioned brass telescope.

Lieutenant Palliser had the watch and threw up a real gunnery salute as Fairfax climbed into the bridge.

‘New course is one-four-zero, sir.’ He could not contain a smile. ‘No further reports from W/T.’

Fairfax nodded and smiled at the other watchkeepers. They seemed different. They
were
different.

He stepped up to the fore-gratings and stood beside the empty, freshly scrubbed chair.

Andromeda
had decided. He was accepted.

KAPITÄN ZUR SEE
Kurt Rietz steadied his powerful Zeiss glasses on the slow-moving dot in the sky and then lowered them carefully to his chest again. He could feel the tension around him like steel mesh, the whispered commands and repeated acknowledgements from telephones and voice-pipes adding to the sense of apprehension.

Rietz was used to tension. It rarely left him. It was part of his being. He could barely remember feeling free, able to relax and chatter about unimportant trivialities.

Under her assumed colours and Swedish markings the raider was moving at a reduced cruising speed, her wake cutting a frothing track through the glittering blue water astern.

They had sighted the aircraft two hours ago, a black dot which changed shape and burst into brilliant light as it altered course across the sun towards them.

Unhurriedly, the raider’s company had gone to quarters. It was always expected, like the dawn, and now it was here. The aircraft was a naval flying-boat, one of the old British Walrus type, so there was no room for doubt. There was a warship somewhere beneath the horizon. One of the hunters. The old enemy.

Rietz heard his first lieutenant’s breathing beside him and said, ‘It was as well we sighted the aircraft in time to alter course, Rudi. A few more minutes and they would have realized we were not on the Swede’s proper course.’

Storch followed the distant plane, his eyes intent. ‘Even so, sir, the warship will not be deceived.’ He stared at his captain. ‘Surely?’

A seaman with a handset banged his heels together. ‘Main armament closed up, sir! All shutters sealed, aircraft secured!’

Rietz nodded. ‘Good.’ To his subordinate he continued, ‘The
real Patricia
will not be reported missing as yet, Rudi. We wear her colours and we are
approximately
on her original course.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Give or take a hundred miles or so. But with these German raiders about who could blame me for taking avoiding action, eh?’ It seemed to amuse him.

The gunnery speaker rapped out from the rear of the bridge. ‘Ship bearing Green four-five, sir! Range fifteen miles!’

A dozen sets of binoculars swung over the screen and from the lookout stations. Above their heads the disguised range-finder turned easily on its oiled bearings, making a lie of the scarred paintwork and rust streaks around it.

Rietz kept his face empty of expression as he steadied his glasses on the first sighting of the newcomer. The merest flaw on the horizon, a hint of smoke which might have been sea-mist parting before a powerful fighting ship at full speed.

He went over everything he had gleaned from the
Patricia
’s papers which his resourceful boarding officer had brought aboard after firing the demolition charges.

Bound for Port Said. A neutral on her lawful occasions.

He shifted his glasses to watch the flying-boat, awkward in the sunlight with its ‘pusher’ engine balanced on the upper wing.

He said, ‘Tell all hands not to stand with their glasses on that aircraft, Rudi.’ He controlled the sudden edge in his tone. Any sign of anxiety now would be asking for trouble. ‘Put some men to work on the forecastle. That plane will come nearer soon. My guess is that the pilot went back to signal a report to his captain. That gentleman will need some more evidence before he closes the range.’

Rietz thought of his two previous voyages. One hundred thousand tons of enemy shipping put down. A tremendous effort for Germany, for all those at home who had only the carefully vetted bulletins to carry them through the days and the long, shattering nights as the bombers came and went.

This voyage was even more important. For the first time since the army had marched into Poland in 1939 Germany
was on the defensive. In Italy, in Russia, even in the Atlantic.

He thought of the admiral in Kiel, grave-eyed as he stared through the rain-soaked windows above the dockyard. Germany had to have more time. For the new weapons, for the army’s next push eastward when the Russian steam-roller was slowed down. There was talk of great new rockets to be fired on to London and the Channel ports, and an all-electric submarine which would be immune from any kind of detection.
Time, time, time
.

Storch called from the bridge wing. ‘Aircraft closing to port, sir!’

In a wide arc, its engine throbbing noisily, the Walrus tilted towards the raider. Rietz made himself look along his command. Obedient to his order a few seamen were working around the anchor cables, another was squirting a hose over the side, possibly his own crude gesture to the enemy.

He snapped, ‘Be ready to reply to the challenge, Rudi. But tell Fackler to make his number
slowly
. This is a Swedish ship, remember? Not a damned battle-cruiser!’

It brought a few nervous laughs, as he knew it would.

The Walrus rattled down the raider’s side, and then an Aldis light stabbed from the cockpit.
What ship? Where bound? Number? Cargo?

Rietz watched the signals petty officer, the way he was cradling his lamp on his elbow. It was convincing, and he had no doubt that the Walrus crew had their glasses on them right now.

The light flashed again and Petty Officer Fackler said, ‘Requests we alter course two points to starboard, sir.’

Rietz nodded. ‘Alter course, Rudi. Steer zero-two-zero. Warn the engineroom to stand by for immediate increase of speed.’

He removed his cap and waved it above his head towards the aircraft. It was already heading away, and when he lifted his glasses again he saw that the oncoming ship had gained identity within minutes.

‘Gone to make his report.’

He patted his pockets, suddenly in need of a cigar. He must clear his mind, be ready to act without hesitation. The
warship would be suspicious, her gunnery officer impatient to hurl his first salvo into them.

The speaker intoned, ‘The ship is a cruiser, sir.’ The smallest hesitation, and Rietz could imagine his own spotting crew whipping through their recognition cards as they had done so often.

‘She’s the Australian cruiser
Fremantle,
sir.’

Rietz let the details about the cruiser wash over him. He knew as much about the enemy build-up in the Indian Ocean as anyone. He had to admit that German intelligence were good. It was almost unnerving the way they seemed to know every ship movement, each rendezvous point as quickly as the enemy did.

So
Fremantle
was here already. Eight-inch guns. A good turn of speed. If it came to a fight it would have to be close action. Torpedoes, then rapid fire with every weapon which would bear. He pictured his gun crews sweating down there between decks, waiting behind the steel shutters, ready to swing out the powerful muzzles and blaze away.

A long ocean roller lifted under the
Salamander
’s keel and tilted her over. Rietz heard the clatter of machine-gun belts below the bridge and knew the ship was riding too high in the water. It was to be hoped the
Fremantle
did not notice. He needed more fuel and stores. A fresh rendezvous with another supply ship was vital now that
Bremse
had gone. He had received a signal about her, vague but definite. It must have been the spare mines she had been carrying. At least it would have been quick, he thought grimly.

He heard some of the watchkeepers murmuring between themselves and walked out into the sunlight again to study the oncoming cruiser.

He saw the smoke fanning from her two funnels, the sea sweeping back from her stem in a great moustache of white foam. She was capable of thirty-two knots, according to Storch’s copy of
Jane’s Fighting Ships
.

A powerful light blinked across the water like a diamond.

‘Heave to!’ Petty Officer Fackler peered at his captain uncertainly.

‘Stop engines.’

Rietz glanced at Storch, wondering if he still remembered what they had been discussing only an hour or so ago. On the face of it he knew the young lieutenant was right. The second raider, the
Wölfchen
, had achieved real success in a matter of weeks. The big Australian cruiser
Devonport
must have seemed like a disaster to the enemy. Not a single spar or stick had been found. Rietz had wondered more than once what had happened to the survivors, if there were any. He thought of the other kills made by the second raider, the
Argyll Clansman
and the crippled
Kios
, and set them against the face he remembered of the man who commanded
Salamander
’s twin. It seemed unlikely.

He had served with the other captain early in the war, in the sunny days when they had swept through the Baltic, the North Sea and deep into the South Atlantic.
Fregattenkapitän
Konrad Vogel, so beloved then by the war correspondents, with his flashing smile and jaunty beard, the tiger of the convoy routes.

Perhaps he was the right man for this kind of work. Maybe the early days of respect for an enemy on the high seas were a hindrance.

Storch had been hinting as much, although Rietz knew he was speaking out for his captain’s sake. He hated Vogel’s triumphs, his conceit, his cruelty.

The strange thing was that the enemy still did not realize there were two radiers working in the same ocean. It had been worked out to perfection in Kiel by the Grand Admiral himself. A new system of grids and rendezvous points. Fewer signals to avoid detection, greater care to move well clear of each other, but not too much to avoid suspicion. Whereas
Salamander
had made the long and precarious voyage from Germany, up and through the Denmark Strait and then southwards through the Atlantic, Vogel’s
Wölfchen
had already been in Japan, fitting out under German supervision, when the plan had been decided.

He thrust Vogel from his mind as he studied the Australian cruiser. She was steering diagonally towards the drifting raider, her three turrets angled round and no doubt loaded with armour-piercing shells.

Storch said between his teeth, ‘The officer you captured, sir, he may be watching you.’ He sounded anxious.

Rietz shook his head. ‘I had a beard then.’

He tried to remember the man whose broad pendant now flew above the oncoming warship. Commodore Rodney Stagg. But he could recall only his size, his uncontrollable anger.

He thought instead of the other man who was hunting him. Captain Blake of the light-cruiser
Andromeda
. Against the pair of them he and Vogel were well matched, when you considered it.

A lookout called, ‘She’s preparing to lower a boat, sir!’

Rietz examined his feelings. Why did he feel nothing? This was the moment. Once aboard, the enemy would know. Even alongside it would be too close for deception.

He said quietly, ‘All guns stand by. Release the shutters over the torpedo tubes.’

Storch plucked at the front of his shirt, his eyes on the cruiser as if mesmerized.

He said, ‘Not long now, sir.’

Rietz glanced at him. Poor Storch, he had not had much of a life. He had been about to marry a girl in Hamburg, but she had died in an air raid.

Feet clattered through from the chartroom and Schoningen, the navigating officer, hurried towards him.

‘Sir! We have intercepted a signal to
Fremantle
and
Andromeda
. Unidentified ship reported. We also picked up something about an enemy aircraft down in the sea.’ He seemed to realize the nearness of the big cruiser and added in a strained voice, ‘Instructions, sir?’

Rietz turned swiftly as the first lieutenant exclaimed, ‘They are hoisting their boat and the Walrus is preparing to come down alongside the ship!’

‘All guns standing by, sir! Torpedo tubes
ready
!’

Rietz said softly, ‘Fingers crossed, everybody!’

The light began to blink again, and only the squeak of the signalmen’s pencils broke the silence.

‘
From
HMAS
Fremantle
to
Patricia.
Proceed to Port Said as instructed. You will meet with northbound convoy and
escort. You will remain with same until otherwise ordered.’