iron pirate (30 page)

He felt it pounding against his ribs, a terrible uncertainty which made him hesitate and stare at himself like a stranger. Tomorrow was the day which would tell. After that, their future could only be measured by hours and by luck.

But that was tomorrow.

He tapped the door and opened it.

The day-cabin was in total darkness and he saw her sitting beside the bunk in the adjoining one, staring towards him so that the door's rectangle stood out like an intimate photograph.

She wore his dressing gown, the one with his initial on the pocket, which his brother had given him on that last birthday together. It was shabby, but he would never part with it.

He walked towards her as she said, 'I have worn it several times.' She moved her arms beneath it. 'It helped.'

He rested his hands on her shoulders and drew her to her feet. They stood together for a long while until he pulled her against him. She had not resist, nor did she respond as he stroked her hair, and pressed his hand against her spine.

He murmured, 'I had to come, Erika.'

She lowered her face against his chest. 'I
willed
you to be here, with me.' She leaned back in his arms and studied his face. 'Welcome to our new home.'

She smiled, but he could feel the tension like a living thing, the nervousness which stripped away her outer confidence. Hechler sat her down on the bunk and knelt against her, his head pressed into her body. He felt her hand in his hair, moving back and forth, gentle and yet demanding, speaking for both of them.

She said softly, 'You won't stay, Dieter. I know you can't.' When he tried to look up at her she gripped his neck and held him more tightly.

'No. Hear me. You said you wanted me. We cannot wait.' He tried to free himself but her arm was like a band around his head. 'I - I feel so shy now that I have said it. But it means so much He took her wrist and lifted his face to watch her, to share the emotion her eyes revealed.

Hechler said, 'I love the way you are.' He felt her shiver as he untied the dressing gown and pulled it open. He kissed the warm skin and then dragged the dressing gown down until her shoulders, then her breasts were naked. He kissed her hard on each breast, felt her gasp as he pressed each nipple in turn with his lips, until neither of them could stand it.

He laid her on the bunk and undressed her. It was without gentleness, but she reached out to help him, until she lay watching him, her naked body shining in the solitary light above the bunk.

Hechler did not even glance at the telephone above them - it could shatter their moment with the ruthless power of a torpedo. He saw the livid scar on her side, as if some beast had sunk its jaws into her body. She seized his head as he placed his mouth over the wound.

It seemed as if life was compressed into a single moment. There had been nothing before, and ahead was only uncertainty like an empty horizon.

He wanted her so much that it hurt, and yet he needed this moment to last forever. Even when he took her limbs, stroked and kissed them, or ran his fingers around and deep into the dark triangle of hair, he clung to each precious second as if it was the last. She was no longer passive, she was dragging at his clothing, pulling him over and against her until she could find and hold him.

For just a fraction of time more they looked at each other, their faces almost touching, and then, with her hand urging and guiding him into her, they were joined. Then, as they fell together, with love and in passion, Hechler knew that no matter what lay ahead, life without her would be pointless.

Hechler slumped in the tall chair, his face stinging with salt and spray, his ribs seemingly bruised by the pressure as his ship crashed through the long Atlantic swell. Was it lighter? Were those millions of stars smaller? It was said that only at sea, on an opervbridge, could a man truly understand the reality and the power of God.

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his glove and heard a man move with alarm. It could be no fun to stand the middle watch with your captain always present. He thought of the friendly glow of the reading light above the untidy bunk in his sea-cabin. At any other time he would have dived into it, fully dressed, needing a shave as he did now, not caring for anything but escape. Not this time. He had wanted to stay awake, had needed to, in case he lost something of those precious moments.

It was so clear in his mind, her body thrusting against his, her cry of pain, the instant pressure of hands on his shoulders when he had made to draw away. He had hurt her. It had been a long time. How right. The same for them both.

He touched his face and decided he would have a shave. He looked into the black shadows below the chair, both happy and shamed. His face must have been as rough as the clothes which he had worn, when he had felt her beneath him, sensed her legs spread out and over the side of the bunk. He could not recall anything like it, so complete, like a frankness which had pitched all barriers aside. And afterwards it had remained between them. More than just a bond, far more than a momentary passion for sex.

He glanced at the lieutenant of the watch; it was Ahlmann again.

Hechler wanted to touch himself beneath the oilskin, as if he was still sharing it. For he could still feel her. As if it had just happened.

Figures moved behind him and he heard the boatswain's mate of the watch ask politely, 'Some coffee, Captain?'

Hechler glanced down at him and nodded. Whatever it was, it would taste like champagne.

He said, 'I shall go to my sea-cabin for a shave afterwards.'

He peered at his luminous watch. When the time came to increase speed and alter course perhaps for the last time before -he did not dwell on the possibilities. They were all behind. Only this moment was real and important.

He thought of the small landing party he had left at the Cable and Wireless station. What would they be doing? Playing cards, writing letters, something sailors usually did without the slightest knowledge of when they would be sent on their way, let alone read by their loved ones.

His mind strayed to the convoy. It would make a big hole in the enemy's fuel supplies. For how long? Two weeks - ten? Even a few days could make all the difference to the embattled armies while they waited for winter, their most needed ally.

He thought of the meeting in Kiel with von Hanke, the way he had looked at him when he had disputed the German army strength on the Russian Front. An oversight? It seemed hardly likely. In his great command bunker was the Fiihrer also deluded by the maps and victorious arrows and flags? Could it be that
nobody
dared to tell their leader the terrible truth? That half of his finest divisions were buried by their thousands in the mud and snow of Russia? It was stupid to think of such things. The ship was only a part of the whole; nobody, not the General Staff, Donitz, not even the Fiihrer could see the complete picture.

Someone coughed behind him and several voices whispered pleased or sarcastic greetings to the morning watch as they

changed places with those who had stood the past four hours.

froebe stooped beneath the chart-table's protective hood and spoke briefly with Ahlmann and his junior assistant. Then he stood up, glanced at the captain as if to ascertain whether he was .iwake or dozing and said, 'The watch is relieved.'

Feet shuffled on wet steel, and the smell of coffee drifted amongst the newly awakened officers and seamen like a welcome drug. Between decks the watchkeepers threw themselves into their blankets, some in hope of sleep, others merely to find solitude when surrounded by so many.

Thoughts of home, worries about shortages there, bombing,

the next leave and the last one. It was all part of a sailor's life.

In the great engine-room and adjoining boiler-rooms the men on watch in their blue or white overalls shouted to each other or sang their bawdy songs, all unheard in the roar of machinery, but to one another. The duty engineer officer stood on his shining catwalk beside the little desk with its telephone and log book. Old Stuck would be down again soon. He had led all of them from the moment the first machine parts had been installed in this great hull. And yet he trusted nobody completely when important orders had to be executed.

The engineer officer, whose name was Kessler, could feel his shoulders ache as he gripped the rail with his gloved fingers. He tell the ship, too, thundering around and beneath his feet. She was the finest he had known. He grimaced. Down here anyway. What he had heard about their gallant admiral hardly inspired anyone. Kessler stared at the quivering bilge water far below the catwalk, blue-green in the harsh lights; it reminded him of the Christmas tree at his home as a boy. The first glimpse of it on that special morning, the presents, his father's huge grin. He had made himself go there on that last leave. The house had gone completely. He had known about it of course, just as he had sensed Hechler's compassion when he had seen him after the town had been bombed; he had asked for leave when the RAF had gone alter the ball-bearing plant there. But as Hechler had explained, had there been a dependant, a wife, children, then perhaps -The captain had been right, of course. But Kessler had gone home all the same when his time for normal leave had come up.

He still did not know what he had expected, a gap in the houses, all that was left of his boyhood and his family memories.

It had not been like that at all. The whole street had gone, and several on either side of it too.

He squeezed the rail until his fingers ached. Would he
never
get over it?

The telephone made a puny rattle above the chorus of engines and fans.

He pictured Hechler up there in the open bridge, the air and the ocean which seemed endless.

He said, 'Ready, sir.'

Over his shoulder he heard Stuck's voice and turned to see his figure framed against the bright pipes and dials, almost shining in a fresh suit of overalls.

'The Old Man?'

Kessler glanced at the shivering clock. 'Yes, Chief.' Stuck was even earlier than usual. But Kessler was glad without knowing why.

Stuck leaned his buttocks against a rail and folded his arms. He could see through the haze of steam and moisture, and his keen ears told him more than any log book.

He looked at the lieutenant and guessed what his assistant had been brooding about. He toyed with the idea of mentioning it, but sentiment found little comfort in lip-reading, in competition with their sealed, roaring world.

His eyes came up to the dials above the deck as a bell rattled again, and the three speed and revolution counters swung round with     expected     urgency.

Stuck grinned and pretended to spit on his hands. His lips said, 'Come on, Heinz, feed the beast, eh?' Seconds later, the three great shafts gathered speed, so that even the men on watch had to make certain of a ready handhold.

Stuck watched the mounting revolutions. A thoroughbred.

Here we go again.

Theil lay on his back and felt the increase of speed creating a new rhythm as it pulsated through the bunk and into his body. He had tried to sleep, but had been wide awake since he had left the bridge. His eyes felt raw, and despair dragged at his mind and insides like some creeping disease.

If he went to the admiral and pleaded for him to make a signal through the next refuelling submarine, would it make any

difference? He knew immediately that it would not. Leitner could have told him about the arrest before the ship had weighed anchor, might even have intervened on his behalf. He did not want to, did not care; it was that simple.

Theil rolled on to his side and stared desperately at his clock. He would be called by a messenger very soon, then he would have to put on an act again, or go mad under this terrible weight. The ship was beginning to shake more insistently, so that objects in his cabin clattered together, as if to drive him out. Very soon now the ship would need him more than ever before. But for that sure knowledge he knew he would kill himself. Over the side in (he night watches, lost in seconds in their ruler-straight wake. Or a pistol to the temple, a moment's fearful uncertainty - then nothing. The thought of the pistol which hung from his bunk made him violently angry, sick with it, until every limb trembled like the ship.

He saw himself in that cabin again, Bauer's stupid, handsome face exploding like a scarlet flower as the bullet smashed him down.

See if
he
could take it as well as he could shoot an unarmed civilian.

The thought brought no comfort. Unarmed civilian, like Britta. Perhaps she was released now, back at their house, putting right the damage to her beloved garden.

He buried his face in the pillow and found that he could not stop himself from sobbing aloud.

Two cabins away, Oberleutnant zur See Willi Meile, the stores and supply officer, lay on his side and stared at the naked girl who was clutching her breast and gasping with exhaustion.

Meile was no fighting sailor, his world was food and drink, paint and cordage, everything which fed and sustained his ship.

He had worked on one of the camera team ever since she had come aboard. She was certainly no beauty, but she was young and had a fine body. To Meile it was like being in heaven. Nothing like it had happened before, nor could occur again.

The executive officers and U-boat commanders had all the glamour. They were more than welcome to it, he decided. It was said that half of Hamburg was owned by ex-pursers of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, just as naval bases like Wilhelmshaven were profitable investments for retired supply officers like Meile.

No, after the war, those who controlled the food and drink would be the new heroes.

He leaned on one elbow and felt her breast. He had left lights switched on as he did not want to miss anything. Her bare shoulders were quite red in places where he had squeezed, even bitten them. She gasped out that she could take no more. 'You are more than a man The rest was silenced as he kissed her hard on the mouth, his hand reaching for her, exciting her despite all exhaustion. Neither of them noticed the sudden increase of engine noise, nor considered what it might mean.