iron pirate (18 page)

She smiled then, at some private joke perhaps.

'I like it.'

'You always do what you like?'

'I try to.' He looked at her, and tried not to think of her on his examination couch, naked.

She said, 'I wanted to talk. I knew you would still be awake. It's not like a ship down here.'

He chuckled. 'I suppose not. I shall attempt to keep it that way.'

‘I was with the Captain when these survivors were brought aboard.'

He said nothing and waited. So that was it. There was certainly nothing wrong with her wrist which could not wait until daylight.

She said, 'He is different from what I expected.'

'An enigma perhaps?'

She smiled at him. 'You are leading me.' She added, 'He seems to care so much about people. How can he do his work?'

Stroheim spread his hands. 'Perhaps it is tearing him apart. I do not know him that well. Yet.'

'But you know his wife, don't you?'

He started. 'How do you hear these things?'

'A friend told me.' She had been going to say
a little bird told me.
But at that instant she remembered his face, the concern in his voice as he had said so quietly to her, 'Stay in the air, little bird.' To use the expression loosely would seem like a betrayal, like sharing a secret.

Stroheim said vaguely, 'She is very beautiful.'

'I met her.' She thought of the other woman's searching stare, her arrogance giving way to caution when she realised who Erika was. Because she was a flier and had carried out a mission for the Fiihrer, people often thought she too had influence. Yes, she recalled that stare, her perfect body, so carelessly displayed in the cutaway gown. Try as she might, she could not see her and the Captain together. Maybe they had both changed.

'Well, you know what she's like.'

Are they still married, or anything?'

He warmed to her.
'Anything
would be closer, I believe.'

She opened and closed her left hand her face expressionless as she tested the pain, the discomfort.

Stay in the air, little bird.

'I'll say goodnight then.' She looked at the two sleeping figures. Flotsam, Leitner had called them. Or, good morning now, I believe?'

He watched her leave and then reopened his book.

Every so often, even in the midst of danger and death there was one small light. Like a flower in a forest, a lone star.

He sighed and crossed his legs. She had made him feel human again.

Viewpoint

Apart from the regular swell the sea's face was like glass, blinding bright in the sunshine. There was a fine haze which never seemed to get any closer, so that there was no break between sea and sky. For the Atlantic it was unusual, even this far south.

The two ships stood close together as if for support, which was true, and at a greatly reduced speed appeared to be almost motionless above their quivering reflections.

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.